


Regarding Cas

by amclove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2005, Amnesia, Angst, Bonfires, Car Accident, Dean and Cas are married, DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Italy, Jam, Kansas, M/M, Nebraska, Pining, Sadness, Suicidal Thoughts, balthazar - Freeform, happy ending i swear lol, regarding cas, sam and jess are in college, smores, supernatural the book series, the vow - Freeform, they cuss a lot so be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-05 03:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16360289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amclove/pseuds/amclove
Summary: Seven years of marriage take a turn for the worse when Cas is caught in a bad accident. In the aftermath, Dean is willing to fight for what they have... but Cas isn't sure that Dean is what he wants.





	1. Part One, Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I owe this story to the Deancas fan-video known as "The Vow" on YouTube. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9YAbkmhugc&t=13s. This video made me cry the first time I watched it, and it's inspired by the movie of the same name, which I've never seen.

    “And even as I wander, I’m keeping you in sight…” Cas rested his head against his hand, his elbow propped beside the window. He couldn’t help his smile at Dean’s quiet singing. He never grew tired of it, some of his most cherished moments those spent with Dean and his acoustic guitar. Cas snuck a look over at him from the shotgun, and he wished for the millionth time that the Lord above, who’d given him Dean, had thought to throw any sort of musical ability into the mix. As it were, Cas was lucky if he could keep a beat in claps. “You’re a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter’s night. And I’m getting closer than I ever thought I might…”

    “Cuz you can’t fight this feeling anymore,” Cas predicted.

    Dean grinned, glancing at him impishly. Cas entwined his fingers through Dean’s where they rested between them, and Dean lifted their joined hands to kiss his husband’s.

    “What a dork,” Cas said, but his manner and smile were bubbling with love-struck approval.

    “And you’re the dork that married me all those years ago, don’t forget it.”   
    Ridiculous (but ever-expected) teenage-esque giggles fading at this reminder, Cas scoffed lightly. “You say that like it’s been a few decades,” he objected. “It hasn’t even been one.”

    “Three more years,” Dean reminded him. “I’d say that’s an accomplishment.”

    “Well, you aren’t the  _ worst _ to live with,” Cas acknowledged, feigning reluctance.

    “I appreciate that,” Dean said, his chuckle deep and light. “And even if you secretly despise me, you’ll have some time off, what with your whole ‘business trip to Salina.’”

    “A trip of which you’d be a part if you weren’t so invested in repairing autos, or caught up in the whirlwind that is your brother’s wedding,” Cas teased him.

    “Hey, he hit the jackpot with this one,” Dean said. He looked back to the road ahead. “I’m telling you, Jess is it.”

    “I know,” Cas agreed. “I’m only joking. I would never expect you to leave Lawrence right now. Not when, at any given moment, either Sam or Jess could have a meltdown all the way in California. And who will they need to call? You, their very own  _ Franck Eggelhoffer _ .” Dean chuckled at Cas’ pseudo-sarcastic tone. When he tightened his grip on Dean’s hand, he rubbed Cas’ gently with his thumb. “I’m going to miss you,” Cas murmured.

    He half expected Dean to say,  _ Of course you will _ , or something of the like, but he just glanced at Cas with a soft look of love, the same expression he had, usually, when Cas wasn’t paying enough attention to see.

    “I’ll miss you too,” he said. “But this’ll be good. If you can bank this account, which I know for a  _ fact _ you will, Adler’s going to owe you a serious one. A promotion, a raise, paid time off to spend with your adoring husband…”

    Cas laughed. “That’s a little unlikely. And—adoring, huh?”

    “Can’t hear you; this is my jam.” Dean cranked up the radio and began to sing, “It would make me believe what tomorrow could bring when today doesn’t really know—Come on, Cas,” urged Dean. “You gotta sing it with me, man.”

    “Dean.”

    “Baby.”

    Caving, Cas had to go along, “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you. I know you were right, believing for so long. I’m all out of love, what am I without you…?”

* * *

 

    Dean’s eyes opened at half past eight, and he found only empty air where Cas should have been. He groaned and rolled over. It was rare for them to sleep apart, and any time it occurred Dean wondered how he’d ever managed to sleep without Cas and his quiet, constant breaths beside him. They served as some kind of lifeline, Dean found, tethering him to the earth. Sometimes he wondered where he’d be if Cas hadn’t been there to stabilize him.

    He had promised that he would wake Dean before leaving for Salina, and of course that had been a flat-out lie—he had seen Dean sleeping and hadn’t been able to wake him. It always happened that way, no matter how many times Dean insisted that Cas was obviously no bother in the least. Dean grunted and swung his legs to the floor, already typing out a message.

_ I love you. Don’t do anything (too) stupid. _

__ He didn’t expect a reply, as Cas would be driving, and left his phone to make himself breakfast. He felt worse, realizing that his husband had been forced to not only leave without a goodbye but also without Naked Breakfast. (Not as strange as it sounds: it consists of them in bed watching  _ Survivor  _ and Dean yelling at the television survival tips that the contestants in most instances aren’t aware of. It isn’t an anomaly for him to choke on scrambled eggs during his rants. And if sometimes they happen to be naked, it’s only to get into the spirit of the show in which most of its stars are always only half-clothed.)

    Dean discovered a Post-It note on the fridge that read:  _ Don’t hate me for letting you sleep in on a Saturday.  _ Dean could all but hear Cas’ pointed sarcasm.  _ Talk to you soon, and see you early Monday morning. All my love—Castiel _ . He sighed and left it there, the sight of Cas’ handwriting and the little heart he had drawn with  _ Dean _ scrawled inside succeeding in making Dean (almost) blush. He did smile, though, and glanced at it once more as he went about his morning. Saturdays were his day off, but now he wished he’d taken a shift at O’Henry’s to avoid an  _ entire _ weekend without his best friend.

    He supposed he could call up Sam, but honestly, Dean wasn’t entirely sure on Sam’s class schedule. God, if anything, Dean should be grateful to have some downtime after how much work he’s been doing for the wedding, as Cas had mentioned. But he enjoyed stress, honestly, and when he suddenly had nothing to do, he was left feeling like a purposeful train brought to a sudden and unexpected halt. Staying still for too long made Dean’s muscles itch.

    He decided on a jog around the block and a shower afterward, successfully occupying a couple hours, and then switched on  _ Say Yes to the Dress _ so that if Jess asked him something about wedding dresses, he could maybe have an intelligent response and cite a vaguely reputable source. Dean doubted this would happen, but he’d rather be prepared. (This had nothing at all to do with the fact that he actually really liked the design of some of the gowns and his bisexual ass could appreciate a woman trying them on. It reminded him also of his own wedding in July all those years ago, and Charlie teasingly asking which of the boys would be wearing the white dress. Sam had, predictably, volunteered Dean.)

    Dean forced himself out of bed around three and was so bored that he took the dishes from the wash to scrub by hand, a chore Cas usually loved but wasn’t here to do. A rag in hand, Dean thought back to an earlier time in their relationship, as they’d been getting to know one another. Cas had stayed over at Dean’s for the night, and had woken early in the morning to wash the dirty dishes.

    “They were just sitting in the sink, Dean,” he defended himself when Dean found him in the kitchen. “It bothered me the _entire night_ ; I can’t believe I slept.” Cas was red-faced and his hands were covered in suds, and Dean thought he would laugh hard enough to piss his pants as he tugged Cas and his OCD into a kiss. He’d never expected to fall for Cas as quickly as he did, but once they’d gotten going there had been no stopping them. Sam had loved to clown around with Dean about it, how shocking it was that his big bro had been pulled in by someone like Castiel at so young an age.

    Dean heated up the chili he and Cas had whipped up Thursday night and then cleaned that bowl as well. He even threw in a load of whites, being productive while Cas was away making him feel useful. After he cleaned the bathroom and the counters all over the house, dusted, vacuumed, and washed the windows, he fell back onto the couch and grabbed the landline on the table beside it. Dean hadn’t seen the need for a landline, but Cas had been insistent that cell-phones weren’t the most reliable of devices and sometimes, it was just easier for Dean to give him victories than to disagree for no significant reason.

    “Hello there, this is Mr. Winchester,” Dean said into the phone. “Is there a Castiel Winchester in residence?”

    “Dean, this is my mobile,” Cas replied. Dean could hear the reluctant grin in his voice.

    “You’re absolutely no fun.”

    “I’d be a lot more fun if I was there with you,” Cas pointed out.

    Dean pressed back into the cushion, eyes closed. “Fuck. Not cool, man.”

    Cas laughed at him and went on, “Alright, what’d you do today?”

    “Pined. Wanted. Yearned.”

    “And here I was so certain that I was supposed to be the human thesaurus and dictionary of this partnership.”

    “Things change. And anyway, I didn’t do anything. Watched TV, went for a run, cleaned.” Dean grinned at Cas’ intake of breath.

    “You  _ cleaned _ ?” Cas repeated. “Without me to prod you along like a sleepy horse?”

    “Okay, okay, that’s enough of that. It wasn’t bad, and it kept me busy; that’s all I needed.” Dean was quiet for a second. “You know we never spend much time apart and now it’s ruined me. I’m utterly co-dependent. I miss you, Thelma.”

    “I’ll be home before you know it, Louise, and you’ll be completely sick of me again. You ate, right?” Cas added, as though just remembering and like if he weren’t there, Dean would ultimately starve from forgetfulness. “The chili?”

    “You bet. Left a little for tomorrow after work. But I can freeze it for you, if you want.”

    “No, no, that’s fine.” Dean could hear Cas’ hand as it ran over his stubble. Damn, but did he wish he could feel Cas’ stubble against his own cheek right now. A moment passed, and then Cas said, “I miss you too.”

    “You sound exhausted. Tomorrow’s the big meeting?”

    “Yes. I can’t fuck this up.”

    “You never have, you never could,” Dean assured him. “Go to sleep, call me before you meet up with everyone and I’ll wish you luck. Not that you need it, of course.”

    “My own personal cheerleader,” said Cas, appreciative. “What would I do without you?”

    “Crash and burn,” Dean said sweetly, an echo of what they’d both heard Jess snipe jokingly to Sam over the years. 

    “I love you.”

    “Me too. Talk to you tomorrow.”

* * *

 

    Dean was sure that, not only being the best-looking bartender at O’Henry’s but also its co-owner, he didn’t deserve to do the grunt tasks. And yet, if anything needed working over, who did they call? Toilets need a bleach-clean? Sink all screwy? Have Dean fix it up. Carts of fresh kegs and stock need bringing in? Dean’s the strongest around; he can fill the shelves. Sure, Sunday meant extra pay, but it was one of the roughest shifts to be given when it meant preparing for the week and dealing with the losers that had nothing better to do on a Sunday night than drink away their woes. Dean had to cut them some slack, though, since, if not for Cas, he would most likely be one of those losers.

    Charlie was hard at work cleaning off the bar and tabletops, her red curls tied back into a tight hairband. “And it’s such a fucking relief that Jess let me give my opinion on the dress!” she said. “She’s all the way in California and I know I’m only a bridesmaid but if I’d had to deal with a shit-ugly gown on top of everything else, I wouldn’t get  _ any _ sleep.”

    Dean wiped a towel across his forehead. In-shape or no, stocking shelves was not the easiest chore. “See, but I’m the Best Man,” he pointed out. “I’m saddled with all this responsibility, and you’re over here worrying about—what, again? Which heels best match the teal shade of a dress?”

    “And which undermine its subtle silver tint!” Charlie said, like Dean had forgotten an obvious piece of the puzzle that was the Jessica Lee Moore and Samuel Winchester wedding. “Do you have any idea how difficult that is? And not to mention, my so-called date will be none other than Kevin Tran!”

    “You’ve mentioned it, several times.”

    Charlie put a hand to her hip. “How about you take a scrub at these tables?”

    “I would,” Dean said, “but the floors are calling my name. Dude apparently threw up last night and I swear I can still feel its gritty remains when I walk over the spot.”

    Charlie snorted as Dean grabbed his phone. He swore under his breath when he saw a voicemail from Cas; he’d forgotten to turn on the damned ringtone, and now Cas’ good-luck call had been ruined. It was past noon, and the meeting had been around eight. Fuck.

    Dean walked into the storage room to try and call Cas, but all he got in return was,  _ This is Castiel’s voicemail. Make your voice a mail _ . Dean chuckled at the cheesy message he’d been trying to make his husband change since forever and rubbed the back of his neck.

    “Hey, buddy. I missed you earlier… I know, I’m a complete and total dumbass. Please tell me the meeting was a success; I don’t expect anything less. Call me.” He was just about to listen to the one Cas had left him when his phone began to buzz; he pressed the green button without glancing at the name on the screen, relieved that Cas was replying so quickly.

    “Hey, Cas—”

    “Mr. Winchester?”

    Dean’s weight shifted onto his opposite foot. “Uh, yeah? Who’s this?”

    “This is Salina Regional Health Center; we have a Castiel Novak here.”

    “You  _ what _ ?” Dean said. His throat all of a sudden seemed to tighten, the voice that escaped gruffer than normal. “What happened?”

    “He was brought in from a car accident; he’s stable, but—”

    Dean didn’t bother to hear or say anything else; he was already moving out the door as he hung up. Charlie caught sight of his red face and called over from the dartboard, “Hey, what’s going on?”

    “Cas,” was all Dean managed before he shoved out to the parking lot and into the Impala.


	2. Part One, Chapter Two

     It took Dean over two hours to reach Salina’s hospital, and he was honest to God shocked that he made it without flipping. He idly wished that he’d caught a flight instead, as that would have taken far less time, but his fear of airplanes on top of the fact that his brain hadn’t been fully functioning at the time of departure brought this thought to a pretty quick stop. He didn’t have time to think about it too in-depth as he ran through the hospital’s doors, annoyingly automatic and thus far too slow for his adrenaline.

     “I need my husband’s room,” he said to the man behind the desk.

     “Name?”

     “Cas. Castiel Winchester.”

     The man—Will, according to his nametag—looked up at Dean after a second of typing and shook his head. “Mr. Novak’s parents are already here—”

     “It’s Winchester; he hasn’t been Novak for seven—Wait, his _parents_?” Dean roughly shoved a hand through his hair. His thoughts were tripping over themselves. “He’s been in a car crash! Why the hell can’t I see him?”

     “Only the patient’s family is—”

     How he was keeping himself from hurtling across the counter to strangle this attendant, Dean had no clue. “Like I said, I’m his _husband_.” He yanked his cell from his pocket and flashed Will his screen. “Look, okay; that’s us right there on our wedding night. The hospital called me; I drove from _Lawrence_.” Dean was surprised that he was still on both feet, what with the way his head and heart were pounding in deafening synchronicity. “Jesus, you have to let me in to see him. _Please_.”

     Will appeared torn, but he reluctantly nodded. “Fine. E202.” Dean’s head dropped in relief as he accepted the visitor’s pass and, with a single slap to the desk in thanks, he pushed off and made for the elevators.

     What felt like centuries later, Dean found his way to the correct room. The door was open, and a doctor was walking out just as Dean approached.

     “What’s wrong with him?” he demanded.

     “You are?” the doctor asked.

     Dean rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, not again. That’s my husband in there, okay? Does anyone want to tell me what’s happened to him or do I have to get a PhD to figure it out for myself?”

     “He was in a car accident,” Doctor Patricio relented, seeming skeptical about it. Dean didn’t give a shit. “He went through the windshield.”

     Dean swore he could feel his stomach constrict in his abdomen. “Is he alright? Can I see him?”

     “He’s not conscious; we had to put him into a coma to keep the swelling in his brain under control.”

     _Coma_ slammed into Dean like a truck. “Can I see him?” he repeated, his voice deepening to a low growl. Was everyone in this place hard of hearing?

     The doctor nodded silently and walked around Dean, allowing him to enter the room. Dean took one step in and stopped, the sight of Cas there in that bed extracting all the breath from his lungs. “You didn’t wear a fucking seatbelt, huh?” he managed to murmur. He went to stand at the side of the bed. “And for all your naggin’ me to.” He wanted to touch him, but was too afraid to try.

     “Who are you?” he heard from the doorway. Dean turned around and saw a man and woman stood there. The first thing he noticed was their clothing, more extravagant than Dean’s worn leather jacket and jeans, and the next thing he took in was that the woman’s eyes were blue like Cas’. They held none of his open warmth.

     “Dean. I take it you’re Cas’ parents?”

     “Yes. You must be the Dean from Castiel’s emergency contacts,” Mrs. Novak said. “His husband.”

     “That’s right,” Dean said. He ignored the way in which she said that word, _husband_ , as if it meant nothing more than _delinquent_ _friend_. “You came out from…?”

     “Nebraska,” Mr. Novak said. “We took the first flight out and arrived little more than three hours ago.” Dean felt the jab and all its passive aggression: he wanted to tell Dean that they were there first, and that this somehow meant that Dean didn’t care about their son as much as they did. If that were the case, Dean was sure that Cas would have spoken more about his parents. As it were, his dislike for Jeffrey and Lauren meant that he’d mentioned them maybe twice in his and Dean’s entire relationship.

     “I drove up from Lawrence,” Dean said. “Quite a trip but I made it. They tell you anything I should know?”

     “Not that I’m aware of,” Lauren said, tone cool. “They’ve put him under but he’ll be good as new when he wakes.”

     “He went through his windshield,” Dean said, incredulous. “I was in an accident way back, not half as bad as this, and I almost didn’t make it.”

     “Well, you aren’t our Castiel,” Jeffrey pointed out. Dean just barely kept in his snort. Cas was one of the strongest people he’d ever met, if not _the_ absolute strongest, but that didn’t mean jack-squat when it came to this kind of stuff. Despite this, he figured that keeping his mouth zipped might be for the best right now. Last thing he wanted was for Cas to open his eyes and see his partner bickering with the parents he didn’t particularly care for.

     And Dean understood that. For the longest time, he hadn’t gotten along with his father, a big part of which rested on Dean’s sexuality. Dean was grateful that before John’s death, they’d all managed to work through those issues, and others, and move on from them. Maybe this could be another chance for Cas and his parents, too. Far be it from Dean to hinder that.

     Dean set his hand over Cas’ where it lay at his side, not too worried that the tiny display of affection would cause any more damage. Realistically, Cas had gotten fairly lucky. He had landed on grass and rolled, so there weren’t actual broken bones. His face was scraped up from the glass, of course, and his head was bandaged from trauma, but things were looking okay considering what had happened.

     “I’m gonna get a coffee,” Dean told the Novaks. He didn’t think he owed them an explanation—and if he were being honest, Dean was wishing desperately for some whiskey—but he shoved that down and moved past his husband’s parents for the lounge down the way.

     He caught a bit of two nurses’ conversation on the walk back to E202, just around the corner. “I can’t believe he’s alive,” one woman said. Dean paused. “Breaking through a windshield, that land on his head? I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end they can’t wake him up at all.”

     “I’m sorry, is that my husband you’re talking about?” Dean asked them, the worry in his words seeping through in stark contrast to their bite.

     “Uh, sir—”

     “Well, he’s gonna be fine,” Dean told them. He left no room for contradiction. “So you know.” He looked between their surprised faces and continued on his way, squeezing the coffee cup just a little too tight. He’s going to be fine, Dean told himself again. There’s no other option.

     He messaged Sam and Charlie with an explanation, probably not as well-written as they required, and added a request that they not call him (along with a note to Charlie to stop by the house and feed Bal). He knew it was selfish, not to mention dumb. Talking to people he cared about would probably be good for him right about now, help to keep him sane, but Dean didn’t think he’d be able to handle either Sam’s or Charlie’s overly-comforting words. Not when Cas was covered in tubes, all bruised and cut up, most likely trapped in a dream about Dean not calling him before that stupid fucking meeting.

* * *

 

     Dean refused to leave. The Novaks checked in at a hotel just down the road, but Dean didn’t want to waste a single second away from Cas’ side. He saw no reason for it; he could sleep perfectly well in a chair, bedside, if not get a better rest knowing that he would be there in case anything happened during the night. Castiel’s vitals were normal, the nurses told Dean—the whole thing oddly reminiscent of _Dr. Sexy, M.D._ but far, far less entertaining. He usually pictured Cas as the aforementioned doctor and his current state didn’t cater to that daydream—and they said also that it would be unlikely that something could go horribly wrong overnight. Dean didn’t care one way or the other, and he just about told them as much. He tried not to be rude, aware of how Cas would chagrin his attitude, but with his husband unconscious and Dean exhausted after a day of driving and worrying, remembering his manners was not too high on his list of things to keep in mind.

     He did dial Sam around ten, for obvious reasons not all too concerned with waking Cas up. Sam answered on the first ring.

     “You’re lucky I didn’t fly to Salina myself,” Sam snapped before Dean could say a word. “I got that call from Charlie; I had to hear this from _Charlie_? We’ve been worried like crazy over here, man!”

     “You and me both.”  
     Sam exhaled substantially, like he hadn’t properly breathed since Dean had texted him hours ago—or, Dean was sure, since Charlie had told him that something was wrong with his brother-in-law. “Is he okay?”

     “Still out; they’re gonna wait to wake him up,” Dean said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m staying the night.”

     “Why didn’t you let me come out to see you guys?” Sam demanded, more concerned than upset.

     “Because there’s no point to it,” Dean said, sharp. “You’re at Stanford to become a lawyer, Sam; not to leave in the middle.”

     “I’ve only got one class tomorrow; I could’ve—”

     “All he needs is rest,” Dean interjected. “As it is, his fucking parents are here.”  
     Dean could practically see Sam’s eyebrows lift. “The Novaks? From what little he’s let loose, Cas can’t stand them.”

     “You’re telling me,” Dean muttered. “Look, alright; I know this isn’t any easier for you, but there’s really nothing to be done.”

     “Then why’re you staying the night?” Sam asked pointedly, but with no real spite to his words. “Dean, are you sure you’re okay?”

     “Peachy. They’re gonna wake him up and it’ll be fine.”

     “Well, try to get some sleep. No point in exhausting yourself any more than I’m sure you already are.”

     “Yeah, sure.” Dean leaned back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling. “If I get any updates or whatever, I’ll call you.”

     “You do that.”

     Dean hung up and rubbed the back of his neck. He glanced at Cas, the rise and fall of his chest. The stress had tightened Dean’s muscles, and he was so tired but afraid to close his eyes and miss a single breath. He hadn’t had to live without Cas for almost a decade. Dean didn’t know what he would do if that changed.

* * *

 

     He found himself in the chapel. He had never been the praying type; he and Cas hadn’t even had their marriage ceremony in a church, but in times of deep distress, Dean had to admit that he dabbled. He’d been told once or twice that he shouldn’t do that, that if you’re religious that’s it and no in between, you can’t just call in favors from the guy upstairs. Dean usually ignored that bullshit. If He cares, that’s all there is to it. No in between.

     Dean was leaned forward with his fingers held loosely together, glad to be the only person in the chapel at this hour. He didn’t know how to go about ‘starting’ a prayer, as his were so rare, and—to be totally honest—he felt rather silly sitting here at all.

     “Are You there, God? It’s me, Dean Winchester.” He released a small chuckle, amazed that even now he’d managed to make a joke. His stomach hurt, his head ached, and he could feel Cas poking his side with laughter in his eyes at Dean’s irreverence. What else could he do right now? He was one step from coming undone.

     “Cas is hurt,” Dean went on. “Pretty bad.” He stared hard at the Cross, tried to see what his brother saw in it. “This goes out to any angel with their ears on, okay? It’s no secret we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t desperate. I think you know that.” He brushed a hand over his face to get rid of his tears. “Please,” he said, voice breaking. “Not for me. Just help him.” Dean heard the door open and immediately stood. It was an older woman, very clearly exhausted, but she hesitated as Dean went to walk past.

     “I’m sure whoever you’re here for will be alright, dear,” she told him gently. He knew he must look like a disaster; red-eyed with bags, his hair sticking every which way from being tugged incessantly. Though he appreciated the kindness, all he could manage was a nod and a tight smile her way before he shoved out into the unsettling fluorescence of the hall.

* * *

 

     Dean’s dreamless sleep was broken by the sun. Three days had gone by, and with Wednesday morning had come a nurse at eight to check in on her patient. Dean rubbed his eyes and watched her examine Cas, scribble words onto a clipboard that he couldn’t read from where he sat.

     “He okay?” he asked.

     The nurse, Julia, glanced his way. “Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, Mr. Winchester.”

     “Dean.” Dean pushed a hand through his hair. He felt hardly rested at all. “Just… Dean is fine.”

     Indifferent, she nodded once and left. He had no idea what to do. It wasn’t like Cas needed anything from him right now. Dean sighed and shoved to his feet, shaking off his weariness. He could sit outside for a little while, get some of that fresh air Sam was always encouraging him to give a shot.

     He hadn’t thought this through. The morning sun and crisp breeze of spring in Kansas was enough to jar some sense into Dean. He had no extra clothes after so many days, no nothing for his stay here because he’d been in such a hurry that he hadn’t given himself a chance to take a breath.

     But Cas was the most important thing, and even without another shirt, who gave a shit? He was where he needed to be. Being sure of that helped ease a fraction of the tension in Dean’s shoulders, at least. Screw everything else.

     He caught sight of the Novaks walking into the hospital and couldn’t help his frown from deepening. He didn’t want to see them and their disapproval so early in the day. This experience hadn’t done anything to soften them toward each other. If anything, they seemed to resent Dean for coming at all and staying so loyally by their son’s side. He just didn’t understand them.

     He was glad that he never went anywhere without the keys to his baby; at least that meant he could get in the car and stop at the diner down the road for a quick breakfast before going to face the wolves. There he ordered a coffee and, as it was Tuesday, the Pig ’n a Poke special. He watched the cars driving past on the road from where he sat alone in his booth and thought again that if he had only answered his goddamn cell, one of the few people he cared most about in the world wouldn’t be cooped up in a hospital. Maybe if he’d gone with Cas to Salina, or if he’d just kept him on the phone for a solid couple minutes, or if Cas had left his hotel a little later or sooner—

     Dean despised what-ifs. He stabbed a slice of sausage and bit down so hard he could taste blood in his mouth. He remembered when John passed, how they’d all been unable to believe that of all the things a heart attack had been the thing to take John Eric Winchester out of the game. Reconnecting with his father only to lose him, a distraught Dean had destroyed their living room upon their arrival home, and Cas held Dean tightly until he’d stopped to take a heaving inhalation against Cas’ chest.

     “You can’t save everyone, sweetheart,” Cas had murmured into Dean’s hair, his broad palm cradling his head. “Though you try.”

     Nothing could have been done about John, or his mother in that God-forsaken house fire when he was three, but Cas wasn’t going to die. End of story. He left more money on the table than was probably necessary and figured that it had been three days—Why not let the Novaks handle bed watch for a change? They certainly didn’t want him there and if that meant Dean could go for a drive and try to relax for half a minute, he’d take it.

     Of course, he’d forgotten that he didn’t necessarily love being alone with his thoughts. He had grown accustomed to Cas being there to talk him out of his own head, to remind Dean to live in the present instead of dredging up the past, but now Cas was in a medically fucking induced coma and for however long wouldn’t be there to give Dean that familiar, sweet smile or a firm kiss. The only way to get rid of all that was to sleep, so Dean took a nap. By the time he awoke, a quick glance at his watch told him that it was past three. He had passed out for over four hours. Scrambling, he turned Baby’s key in the ignition and drove back to the hospital, ignoring the cloying and now gratingly familiar scent of antiseptic as he made for Cas’ room.

     He saw two nurses taking their exit and picked up his pace just in time to bump into a third. Dean stepped quickly past him and was finally able to see that, inside the room, Cas was awake. For the first time since Friday, he could see the deep ocean blue of his husband’s eyes. They found Dean.

     “Cas,” he said, his lungs pumping full. He’d forgotten what it felt like to run on maximum power, but this was it, and the sheer force of seeing his husband conscious and truly fucking _alive_ was almost enough to knock Dean off his feet. “Cas, you’re okay.”

     He looked at his parents with confusion pulling at his eyebrows. Dean was halfway there when Cas looked back to him and said, “I’m sorry, how do I know you?”

     Dean stopped short. The Novaks turned to Dean, and the scariest part was that Dean could swear he saw a flicker of something resembling pity in Jeffrey’s eyes.

     “Cas, it’s _me_ ,” Dean said. His voice cracked.

     “My close friends refer to me as ‘Cas,’ but I can’t say I recall your face,” Cas told Dean. He felt a hand on his arm and saw that Doctor Patricio had appeared behind him. He motioned with a tilt of his head for Dean to leave with him and, with a last glance to his husband, Dean did so.

     “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

     The doctor sighed. “Mr. Novak—” At Dean’s reddened cheeks, he amended, “Castiel awoke about ten minutes ago with no recollection of anything after 1995.”

     “He…” Dean could feel the color leave his face. “You’re saying he doesn’t remember a decade of his life? _Me_? He doesn’t—” Dean wanted something to brace against, anything to keep him upright, because he wasn’t sure that he could manage it on his own.

     “We weren’t certain to what extent the accident damaged his—”

     “Will he get his memories back?”

     “We can’t be sure,” Dr. Patricio told him, patient. “It’s case to case and though the effects may be short-term, it’s possible that your husband’s memories may never return fully. I am sorry.”

     Dean heard a ringing in his ears, like he’d been in the vicinity of a bomb and was covered head to toe in padding that afforded him no sturdy control of his limbs. He stumbled back into Cas’ room and took in the sight of Lauren seated beside her son, holding his hand. Jeffrey loomed over them both like the broad, patriarchal figure he so obviously was, and all Dean could see was a family with no place for Dean. In that moment, Dean wanted to be sick. He pushed into the bathroom connected to E202 and threw up in the garbage, wishing to God he hadn’t had breakfast that morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't noticed, I named this fic Regarding Cas after the episode called Regarding Dean in which Dean loses all of his memories. :D I really hope you like it so far. If you notice any mistakes, feel free to let me know; I'd appreciate it, honestly. ALSO I feel like I want to update every two days or so, but I'll see how I feel.


	3. Part One, Chapter Three

 

    “What do you propose we do?” Dean couldn’t stand the look on Lauren’s face, as though she couldn’t care one way or the other what happened to Dean from here on out.

    “Obviously we’ll be taking Castiel home with us.”

    “Home, where? You can’t mean Nebraska.”

    “Dean, he doesn’t know who you are,” Jeffrey said, gentler than his wife. Dean still felt the statement like a fist to the gut.

    Unable to stay with them a moment longer, he re-entered Cas’ room, where Cas had opted to move into the chair by the window to examine the hospital grounds. His parents hovered outside, watching Dean as he walked toward Cas slowly.

    “Hey,” he said.

    Cas glanced his way. “Hello.” He tilted his head, evidently trying to think, then straightened in his seat when it accomplished nothing and said, “I’m sorry. I still don’t remember you.”

    “Yeah, I–I know. I just need to let you know a couple things, alright?” Cas nodded. “And I don’t wanna upset you. I—” Settled gingerly onto the chair across from Cas, Dean scraped a hand over his mouth. Cas waited patiently for Dean to speak. “Cas, my name is Dean Winchester. You’re Castiel Winchester.” He was having a hard time gauging Cas’ reaction to this, so he plowed on. “We’re–we’re married.”

    “Married? You and I?” Cas examined Dean. He didn’t look particularly comfy, but neither did he appear ready to up and run, so Dean had to take this as a good sign. “My parents don’t know you. Why would we be married if my parents haven’t met you?”

    “You and them, you guys don’t get along too well,” Dean said, trying to speak clearly. “You didn’t want them at the ceremony; I hadn’t even met them until I got here, to Salina.”

    Cas didn’t look all that convinced, and Dean couldn’t blame him. If he didn’t remember his reason for leaving Kearney, and the Novaks, why on earth would he believe that he had gotten into a marriage—one that is not even recognized by the United States—to a lumbering pile of flannel? He was blue blood—or, at least, he had been before his move to Wichita.

    “We think you should come home with us,” Lauren told her son. Dean’s jaw tightened at the proposal. The look in Cas’ eyes suggested that he was wont to agree with his mother. His mouth opened, unsure what to say.

    Suddenly, Dean was struck: he had never gotten the chance to listen to the message Cas had left him before the meeting. Dean pulled his cell from his pocket, quickly. “Look, okay; just listen to this,” he said, praying that his begging wasn’t too obvious. All he could do was be grateful that he kept an extra phone charger in the Impala. “ _You_ called me Sunday morning.” Before anyone had a chance to object, Dean pressed the pound key to begin the recording.

    “Not answering your phone, I see,” Castiel’s voice, deep and amused, rang out into the room. Dean could feel his throat constrict at the sound. He glanced at Cas, who looked surprised to hear his own voice speak from a stranger’s phone. “I have to go to that meeting, as you know, but you must be busy with work, something or other. Have a good day. I love you, Dean. Call me later.” He added, teasing, “Don’t forget this time, dummy.”

    Dean swiped away the tears that had sprung to his eyes at hearing Castiel speak to him like—well, like his husband, his best friend, instead of a person he’d just met in this hospital room. He looked at Cas.

    “That was me,” Cas said.

    Dean nodded slowly. “Yes.”

    “Calling you, because… we’re married.”

    “Yes. I wasn’t lying to you. On your phone over there, you’ll find a message sent in the seconds leading up to the hospital’s call to me; I was supposed to wish you luck before that stupid meeting and called to apologise when I realised time’d slipped away from me but I… I got your voicemail. Then I knew why.” Dean dropped his eyes. “I have… pictures from our wedding, dates, parties—any proof you need—” He nearly let ‘baby’ slip out, and had to bite it away, painfully. “—Cas, any at all. I swear.”

    “It doesn’t make a different, does it?” Lauren asked. “For all intents and purposes, you are still a stranger to him. A voicemail and a few photos won’t—”

    “Mother,” Cas said, quiet but firm. “Isn’t it worth it, anything, to try to jog my memory?” He turned to Dean. “Maybe going with you will help in that.”

    “You can’t be serious.”

    “Lauren,” Jeffrey spoke up.

    “Where do you—where do we live?” Cas asked Dean.

    Dean couldn’t help his smile. “I’d love to take you there.”

* * *

 

    It was hard to believe that Cas agreed to drive back with Dean Saturday morning, after those previous days of observation. Dean had been sure that being alone in a car with someone Cas had basically just met would be a complete no-go, but Cas had taken it in stride and made no fuss. Dean knew he shouldn’t be surprised by this, considering his husband never made a fuss about anything. When he’d fractured his ankle in ’03, he’d avoided going to a doctor because he was sure it was just a ‘sore muscle,’ some ‘light bruising,’ and didn’t want to bother. Unfortunately for them both, this recent injury was a bit more serious, and its consequences were, in comparison to the ankle, a bit more dire.

    Cas’ car had been repaired by a shop in Salina, a fact that seemed unfortunate to Dean when he, after all, was co-owner to a repair shop and could have fixed his husband’s car for basically nothing—but he ignored that. It wasn’t like Cas had been given a choice, or that he remembered this single fact about Dean when he remembered nothing else.

    It would be sent back to Lawrence on a truck, so now Dean drove down the highway and kept his tongue clamped down by his teeth to keep himself quiet while Cas fixed his attention out the window. Silently, Dean slipped out the cassette of his music and replaced it with one that Cas had left in the Impala. Donovan began to seep through the speakers, and Cas turned to glance at it, then to Dean.

    “This is my favorite band,” he said, his smile small but happy.

    “Yeah, you keep a couple tapes in here for long drives,” Dean explained. “Figured it wouldn’t hurt to give you something you know right about now.”

    “Thank you, Dean.”

    Dean forced himself to look at the road ahead. “Don’t mention it.”

    They made it home to Lawrence around six in the evening, and Cas didn’t move from where he sat shotgun. Dean walked around to his side and opened the door for him, wishing to God that he could offer a hand as he normally did when given the chance. He thought back to when he’d dropped Sam off to one of his very first dates, reminding him to always open the door for her, be chivalrous, and ask lots of questions; they like that. That was before he’d met Cas, before he’d seen that with him he didn’t ask questions because he knew it would get him to bed—it was because he wanted to know every piece of Cas that Cas would deign to offer him. It didn’t matter how nuanced it could possibly seem to anyone else.

    Maybe that had been because Dean wanted to find an inevitable imperfection and make Cas seem less like a fucking angel, but to this day he hadn’t managed to do so.

    “You good?” Dean asked him. Cas looked so small, sitting there, and Dean wanted nothing more than to hold him.

    “I think so,” Cas said. He stood up and allowed Dean to retrieve his luggage from the trunk before walking with him up the porch steps to the front door. Dean twisted the key from his loop into the lock and, pushing the door open, stepped away to let Cas pass through.

    “So, this is our place,” Dean announced.

    He couldn’t say another word at that moment, because just then Cas was stumbling backward at the weight of a golden retriever pouncing onto his legs.

    “I forgot to mention, uh—This is Bal,” Dean told him, trying not to smile at the look of astonishment on Cas’ face.

    “Bal?” he echoed. His hands were petting the dog awkwardly, as though they weren’t sure what to do.

    “Balthazar,” Dean elucidated. “We uh, we got him in ’99 when he was a puppy. I thought it’d be funny to name him something intimidating.”

    “I’m more of a cat person,” Cas said. It wasn’t meant to sound detached, but Dean wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry.

    “I’m allergic,” he said. He was hardly able to believe that his voice didn’t crack. “Bal was our compromise.”

    Cas gave the dog one last pat on the head and then looked around—toward the staircase that led up to their bedroom and guest room, the small dining room that was usually filled with six people or more, the living room and the couch where he and Dean sometimes slept after a movie (among other things), the kitchen where Dean would settle his arms around Cas’ hips at the sink and kiss his neck. (One time, Sam had been present and the sight of that mild show of affection had prompted the then-vegan Sam to roll his eyes with a, “Seriously? Right here, in front of my salad?”)

    But Cas didn’t know any of this anymore, and Dean wasn’t sure if he could explain it all. Hated that he had to.

    “This is a beautiful house,” observed Cas. It pained Dean to hear him say that, like he was a guest popping in. “We designed it together?”

    “With a hell of a lot of help from Sammy, yeah.” Dean laughed a little, but it was cut short by Cas’ drawn brows. “Sam. He’s—he’s my brother.”

    “Is he older or younger?”

    “Younger—he’s younger.” Cas nodded as if this were the most normal thing in the world but, not for the first time, it was hitting Dean that the person he’d spent the past years of his life loving and depending on had, with one accident, been all but erased.

    Cas paused at the wall of the living room where a photo had been taken and framed of him, Dean, and Bal. Another of Dean and a man Cas didn’t recognize; he was taller than Dean, with a mop of brown hair and a huge, happy grin. A redhead with curls and a mischievous glint in her eyes standing with her arms wrapped around Cas’ waist as he smiled, laughing an open-mouthed laugh at whoever was taking the picture. Cas had to look away.

    Clearing his throat, he said, “I take it we have a lot of friends.”

    “We have enough,” Dean agreed, laughing a bit. “So, what is it you’d like to know?”

    “About what?”

    “Everything. You know, I–I don’t want to overwhelm you with a bunch of facts and figures if you don’t want to know ’em yet.”

    Cas took a seat on the chair across from where Dean had dropped onto the sofa. “I’m not sure. Maybe the basics.”

    “Sure, of course. Lemme see. Well, we met goin’ on seven years ago, in 1997. I was uh, bartending at a Rush concert in Hutchinson.” Dean smiled a little. “The Test for Echo tour. Needed the cash.”

    “How old are you now?”

    “Just turned 26 in January.”

    Cas frowned. “You couldn’t have been 21 at the time.”

    “Fake ID.” At Cas’ taken aback look, Dean shrugged. “Like I said, I needed the cash. Anyway, you were there with a friend, Benjamin, and when you came over to get drinks, I couldn’t help starin’ at you.”

    “Why?” Cas asked, genuinely curious.

    “Well, take a look at yourself,” Dean said. Cas glanced down at his t-shirt and sweatpants, which succeeded in rousing a laugh from Dean. “No, I mean—You had the wild dark hair and blue eyes to match, an AC/DC shirt that fit you like a dream.” He coughed. “Uh, and on top of that, older by a good few years.”

    “How much older than you am I?”

    “I’m ’79, you’re ’74. About five years between us. Hell, you were going to be 23 that August and I was only 18.”

    “I picked up a younger man?” Cas appeared horrified and all at once slightly impressed with himself.

    “You weren’t exactly grotesque, alright? We hit it off; and me, being the brass young thing that I was, dared to ask you out.” Dean smiled, shaking his head. “And didn’t you freak on that date when you found out I wasn’t at least 21 like you’d thought.”

    “This sounds like quite the adventure,” Cas mused.

    “It was.” Dean averted his eyes and patted his thighs once. “We dated until April of ’98, I proposed, we got married in July on the day we’d met the year before. The seventeenth. Been together ever since.”

    “I’m sorry, I’ve been meaning to ask: is marriage now legal for homosexuals?” Cas enquired.

    “No, no, my buddy Chuck got ordained online and we had the ceremony in a barn around where he lives. It was more pleasant than I make it sound, trust me.” Dean rubbed a hand over his hair, ruffling it. “We didn’t need a marriage license or some bullshit to tell us what we already knew, that we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives.” He said it so simply, but there was something under his words that Cas felt in his stomach. “I gave you my ring, the one I’d worn since I was 12… That was enough.”

    “That’s why I was registered in the hospital as Castiel Novak,” Cas deduced.

    “Yeah. Legally, you’re still a Novak. But to you, to everyone that we know, you’re a Winchester.”

    “I see.” Cas thought for a moment. “We are—not legitimately—married as of July 17, 1998; we have a dog named Balthazar; your brother is named Sam; and we live here together in Lawrence.”

    “That’s a good start, yeah.”

    “Was that man, Benjamin—was he my Best Man?”

    “No, actually, we didn’t have those. We had my brother and Charlie, and some other buds there.”

    Cas tilted his head. “So, a man named Charlie is my best friend?”

    “Should’ve been more specific, uh—Charlie’s a chick,” Dean clarified. “She’s the redhead in those pictures. Been one of my closest friends, like a baby sister to me, since—a little while before I met you, actually. We took to each other immediately—which was incredible, considering the age gap. Same with you two.”

    “And she’s aware of my—state?”

    “Yeah, I… I let them all know.” Dean gave Cas a second. He was so incredibly worried that it would be too much for him. “You hungry? I know we stopped for burgers on the road, but I can whip something up no problem.”

    “I wouldn’t want to burden you; you’ve driven all the way to Salina and back, just for me—”

    “Cas, you aren’t a ‘just.’” Dean held his eyes until Cas dropped the contact. “I’ll get on a couple sandwiches.”

* * *

 

    “Peanut butter and raspberry jelly, no crust,” Cas noted as Dean set the plate in front of him. Dean sat across from him at the table with a shrug.

    “It’s your favorite.”

    Cas nodded and took a bite, letting a few moments of silence pass. “So, the man who married us—Chuck—what’s he like?”

    Dean laughed against his sandwich and had to swallow before he could reply, “Has a bit of a God-complex, but he’s the best. Me and Sammy met him in ’93. He was visiting our uncle same time we were, and we all got along great. He liked us so much, in fact, that he was inspired to get started on a book series he’d been playin’ around with and get his writing career off the ground. _Supernatural_ , based _very_ loosely on me and Sam’s life.”

    Cas raised his eyebrows, interested. “And what happens in these books?”

    “We hunt monsters.” Dean chuckled. “Well, the characters Dustin and Spencer do. He changed my parents John and Mary to Jacob and Morgan, he changed you from Castiel to Levanael…”

    Castiel couldn’t be more surprised. “ _I’m_ in the books?”

    “Sure are. First appeared in ’99, book four: _When the Levee Breaks_. Levanael gets me—Dustin—out of Hell, where he’s been trapped for a solid four months.” Dean laughed at Cas’ face. “You should read ’em. They’re not half bad.”

    “Perhaps I will. Not everyone can say they’ve got a book series inspired by them.” Cas chewed, then asked, “Are Dustin and Levanael romantically involved?”

    “I can’t tell you that; you’re just gonna have to carve out a time to find out for yourself.” Dean sipped his beer. “I own all five books; they’re on the shelf in our bedroom.” Cas’ features lost their openness, and he looked down at his plate. Dean realized where he’d gone wrong. “We have a guest room, by the way; I can set you up in there while you… get better.”

    “And if I don’t?” said Cas, barely audible.

    “You’ll be fine,” Dean told him. He remembered what he’d said to those nurses, that there was no other option than for Cas to be okay. He was alive, real and breathing, and for now that could be enough.

    Unable to sit still, Dean stood and had made it to the doorway of the kitchen when Cas said softly, “Thank you for the sandwich.”

    Dean shifted his weight onto his right foot as he looked over to Cas. “Yeah, well. Yours are better.”

    He dropped his gaze and, as he wiped off the counters, tried to figure out how he would spend the night in bed alone while his husband slept down the hall.

* * *

 

    Cas awoke around eight, and Dean had to remind himself not to stare when he walked into the kitchen with his hair stuck up, pajama pants frustratingly low on his hips.

    Dean cleared his throat. “Mornin’.”

    “Hello,” Cas said, yawning. He blinked and took in Dean stood at the stove flipping pancakes. “Dinner _and_ breakfast?”

    Dean chuckled. “What can I say? I like to cook. And anyway, sandwiches don’t really count as a gourmet meal.”

    “They do when the last meal I can document my eating was in a hospital,” Cas said. Dean didn’t know what to say to that, so he moved on from it.

    “Well, we got juice in the fridge, milk—beer, too, if you want it.” Cas shook his head, lips curled in a smile, and Dean felt a triumphant swell of warmth at the sight.

    “I think I’ll pass. Juice should be alright.” He peeked into the cabinet just beside his head and was relieved to see that it stored the glasses. “It’s strange that you know all my favorite things,” he said. “It’s like you’re psychic.”

    “I wish.” Maybe then he’d have known to stop Cas from getting hit.

    Somehow, Cas heard Dean’s train of thought and paused with the bottle of juice in midair. “Dean, don’t beat yourself up.” Dean couldn’t reply. Even now, Cas could read Dean’s mind just by listening to his voice, or gauging the set of his shoulders.

    “I think I’d like to go out today,” Cas said, when they’d both been quiet for a second too long to be comfortable.

    Dean glanced his way. “Yeah? Where to, Cas?”

    “I’m not sure. What do you usually do on Sundays?”

    “On a normal Sunday I’d head into O’Henry’s, the bar I co-own, or Guenther’s,” Dean said. He didn’t want to touch the subject of his husband re-meeting everyone just yet. “It’s a car repair shop around the corner from here.”

    “You work with cars?”

    Dean nodded, plating the pancakes and baked peaches. “Always have. Kept me busy as a kid, and when Dad passed he gave his share of Guenther’s to me, in his will.”

    Cas looked impressed and sympathetic all at once. “That was incredibly kind of him.”

    “Yeah, we didn’t always have the best… We didn’t get along too great until his heart attack. That’s why we came here in ’02, me and you; thought it’d be best if we stayed close.” Dean prodded a fork into his peaches, absent. “Then he died in February of the next year, left me his shop, and we moved here for good.”

    “You said you didn’t get along until…” Cas wasn’t sure how to phrase his question.

    “We talked a lot while he was in the hospital,” Dean explained. “He’d never been a huge fan of me being bi, nothing I ever did was good enough, yada yada.”

    Dean laughed without mirth, thinking back to the one-sided conversation he’d had with John, when his father had found Dean late one weekend. He was coming home from a night out with Cas, actually, and feeling better than he’d felt in a long time. He had assumed John to be either asleep or at the garage. Dean was sure that had to have been the biggest mistake of his life, when it happened, and he would curse from that day on whatever whim had caused John (who was not in fact upstairs, but in the living room) to glance at that moment out the window. Out the window where, by the road, Dean was receiving a goodnight kiss from Castiel.

    Dean could still remember the feeling upon entering his house, where John had been silent and stood beside the window, a hand fisted against the frame. He didn’t need to ask his father what was going on, because he knew he’d seen. John had looked at Dean with eerie calm and such _disappointment_ , as if he had the right, and one of the few things Dean could still recall from that night was what he’d screamed at his father as the older man shoved past Dean and out the front door: “Aren’t you gonna to do anything? Aren’t you even gonna to say anything? I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me, everything. I’ve given everything I’ve ever had. What the hell kind of father are you?”

    He’d followed John to the car mid-rant, but didn’t go after it as John pulled away from the house. The burning concern of his baby brother’s eyes on Dean’s back forced him to turn around that night, the fear crystal clear on Sammy’s face; Dean didn’t want to imagine what his looked like. All he’d been able to do was push his brother back up the stairs to bed, and cry in his own. That was that.

    “He refused to meet you,” Dean told Cas, “and when he _finally_ did… I don’t know how, he just… He saw something between us, knew this wasn’t a temporary thing we had goin’. Maybe it reminded him of him and my mom.”

    “How so?”

    “Her parents didn’t like him.” Dean grinned at the memory of John telling this story, bits here and there on the rare occasion he found himself in a decent mood. “Shocker there, really. But John and Mary knew it was meant to be. They ran off and got married in Reno without telling a soul.”

    Cas laughed. “That’s… romantic. They must have had the perfect marriage.”

    The amused light in Dean’s eyes dimmed. “It wasn’t perfect until after she died.” He looked to Cas, whose mouth was open slightly. “She, uh… Mom was killed in a house-fire when I was three. Circuit problem, some bullshit like that.”

    “Dean, I am so sorry.”

    “Yeah, well.” Dean adjusted in his chair, trying to focus on his food. “It’s a long time ago now.”

    “That doesn’t make it any less real,” Cas said, gentle.

    Dean didn’t know how he was supposed to do this. Cas was so much like himself, and yet completely different.

    “I’d like to meet Charlie today,” Cas added, this time unaware of Dean’s thoughts. “Is that okay?”

    “If that’s what you want,” Dean said, “it’s great.”

* * *

 

    Dean shot a text imploring the gang to act somewhat chill, only to be told that a worried Garth and his wife would be tagging along. By this point, Dean wouldn’t be thrown by the news that this was a party. He knew he should have expected this, but that didn’t stop his nerves from dangling one step away from snapping. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and, with a shake of his head, messaged the group that if anyone set Cas off, there’d be hell to pay.

    “Where are we meeting them?” Cas asked Dean as he drove.

    “Global Café.” Dean shrugged. “Charlie likes it. By the way, uh, our buddy Garth is gonna be there with his wife.” He looked Cas’ way, waiting for a reaction. “I didn’t know until—”

    “No, it’s alright.”

    Dean let out a breath. “And you know, man, don’t worry too much over any details right now; it feels like twenty questions and answers over here filling your head, and you got time.”

    “I know.”

    Dean looked at the road. “We don’t have to stay long.”

    Cas turned to watch out the window, his hands folded neatly in his lap, and Dean gripped the steering wheel tight with his own and tapped his fingers just to keep them distracted.

    As he assumed would be the case, he and Cas arrived at Global’s and their five friends had already grabbed a table. It sat in a corner of the restaurant to afford the semblance of privacy, but the café’s openness would hopefully give Cas a sense of comfort.

    “I’m nervous.” Cas sounded almost taken aback by his own statement, and Dean risked it: he placed a hand on the small of Cas’ back, so softly Cas may not have even felt it.

    “All you gotta do it make a little small talk, tell ’em you slept okay or whatever,” Dean said to him. “This isn’t supposed to be stressful for you.”

    “It’s fine,” Cas said, moving away from Dean to enter the café. Dean sighed and followed suit. He made a note to dial down his overbearing worry toward Cas; it was clear that he wasn’t feeling it and, if anything, it might put him more on edge.

    When they saw Cas walk in, everyone at the table stood up. Charlie smacked the backside of Garth’s head in a silent gesture for him to do the same, but Cas waved a hand at them.

    “It’s alright. No need to make a show for me.” His smile was close-lipped and teetering and, behind him, Dean lifted his eyebrows at Sam as he said, “Hey, guys.”

    “Cas,” Garth said. He tried to keep his smile from getting too big and scaring Cas off, but he couldn’t help it. This was one of his closest friends stood right in front of him after being hospitalized. “How _are_ you, man?”

    “I’ll live,” Cas assured him. Dean nearly snorted; that phrase was the exact thing he and his brother used any time someone told them to see a doctor. Cas had said the same about his ankle. “How are you? Garth.” It was stilted, but he was trying.

    “Cas, it’s good to see you,” Bess piped up. Her pretty face was framed by her curls, and her words held genuine joy in them. She was one of the most unaffectedly kind people Dean had ever met, aside from her husband. When he met good folk, he liked them to stick around.

    “You must be Charlie,” Cas said.

    Dean glanced at the latter and took in how the red of her cheeks was a match to her curls, the way she was biting off the lip gloss at her bottom lip. She was willing herself not to break down into tears, he could see, and in a wave of feeling toward her Dean wished that he could wrap her up in a hug right this second.

    “Yup. That’s me.” She didn’t know what else she could manage, so she gestured around and forced enthusiasm into her words as she said, “What’re we waiting for? I don’t know about you guys but I’m starved. Let’s sit.”

    “I’m surprised you wanted to do this,” Sam said. “But you’ve always been bad-ass.”

    “Thank you. I’m sorry, you must be Sam.”

    “Sure am,” Sam confirmed, trying not to let his sadness show. He motioned to his fiancée beside him. “This is Jessica. We live in California together.”

    “You came all this way to see me?”

    “Of course we did,” Jess said with a gentle smile. “School let out this past week anyway; we had no reason to stay in California, not with everything happening here.”

    “I’m sure Bal was excited to see you,” Bess said to Cas encouragingly.

    “Oh—yes, well, it appeared that way.”

    “You know, Sam and Jess keep a dog in California,” Garth added, for the sake of keeping any kind of conversation alive. “Name’s Bones.”

    “He’s a lot like Bal, but with a red coat,” Sam supplied. His eyes darted to Charlie. Her smile was real, but much like Dean, its underlying emotion was that of aching. He recognized the same in his brother and Jess.

    “So, uh, Garth—do you live in Lawrence?”

    “Oh, no, me and Bess live out in Adair,” Garth said with a smile at Bess. “Tiny little place in Oklahoma. Not too far; just close enough we ’ere able to grab a flight here real quick.”

    “For what?” Cas asked, blank. His cheeks turned red as he realized that they’d come to see him, same as had Sam and Jessica, and he dropped his eyes. “I—You didn’t need to…”

    “Sure we did, honey, don’t be foolish,” Bess said in her motherly way. “No trouble at all.”

    They were all spared from having to formulate any sort of continuation of this topic as the waitress popped up to take their meal orders. Once she’d gone, though, the group was back to square one, and this was how the majority of the lunch went that afternoon.

    “It was nice to meet you all,” Cas said. He glanced at Dean when he saw their stricken faces. “Or—meet you _again_ … I’m sorry—”

    “Cas, it’s alright,” Dean assured him. “We’ll uh—we’ll see you guys later, okay?” He all but guided Cas from the café, his cheeks flaming not from embarrassment, but his usual side-effect to sadness: anger.

    “Are you upset with me?” Cas asked, once they’d been driving for a few minutes.

    Dean quickly looked at him then back to the road. “What? Of course not. I’m a little proud of you, honestly, for how you handled it all back there.”

    “Handled what? Your friends?”

    Dean didn’t indulge his need to correct Cas—Charlie, Garth, Bess, his brother and Jess, they were _family_. Cas’ family. “Yeah. Anyone else probably would’ve lost it; they can be a lot sometimes.”

    “I liked them,” Cas said thoughtfully. “Charlie is funny.”

    Dean smiled. “Yeah, she is. So, uh… Got a couple movies back home, thought me and you could watch ’em if you’re up to it.”

    “Sure,” Cas agreed with an easy nod. “It isn’t like I’ve got much else going on right now.”

    Dean laughed at the joke that almost didn’t seem like a joke. It was the type Cas always made, and he was beyond happy to hear him sound like himself for even one second.

    “I guess not.” He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “How d’you feel about TV? We have every _The Greatest American Hero_ season on tape.”

    “Do we have _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_?”

    Dean reached over and proudly patted Cas’ shoulder, egging a smile from the other man. “You bet your ass we do.”

* * *

 

    “I swear to God, some of the best moments of this movie happen in the credits,” Dean said, his laugh breathless.

    “I remember seeing it in the theater,” Cas reminisced. “My brother convinced our mother to let me go with him and his friends.”

    Cas had mentioned his brother before in passing, but Dean really knew nothing about him. In a way, it felt wrong to pry when Cas was at a disadvantage—

    “What’s he like?” Dean asked anyway. “You guys get along?”

    “We’re very close. He teases like any older brother will, but Ishim’s always had my back.” Cas grinned. “I remember one summer, when we were staying at our lake-house, we strung up a tire on the tree right beside the water. I nearly _drowned_ when he landed on top of me in a cannon ball.”

    “Sounds like a hoot and a half,” Dean observed.

    “It was.”

    “You go there often, the lake-house?”

    “Usually every summer. My parents, me, Ishim, Hannah—” Cas stopped, remembering something. “Hannah. Have I…?”

    Dean straightened in his place beside Cas. “Sorry, pal, you lost me.”

    “Hannah, my girlfriend—Well, obviously she isn’t anymore.” Cas got to his feet, restless now, and put a hand to his head. “I can’t remember why I broke up with her. Did she break up with _me_?”

    “You broke up with her,” Dean said, going to stand nearer to Cas as he mumbled. “You never told me why; it was—pretty bad, is all I could get.”

    “I don’t remember,” Cas repeated. He sighed, looking as if all his energy had just been expelled in that breath. He dropped onto the recliner at his back, face pressed into his palms. “Why can’t I remember anything?”

    Dean walked over to his husband cautiously. “It was the accident, the brain damage—”

    “I _know_ ,” Cas snapped at him. He released a frustrated sound that resembled a growl and shook his head. “I—I need to sleep.”

    Dean took a step away from him. “Sure. Yeah.” He gestured to the hallway. “Go on up.” He watched Cas walk from the room, saw his hands closing into fists and then opening again in a fidgety motion. He felt like shit, not being able to do a damn thing for the person he loved more than anything, and wanted nothing more than for this whole thing to be over and done.

    Dean sat on the couch and rubbed his eyes. The tape had been pushed out of the VCR and the television screen was blue, waiting to be turned off. Dean didn’t care. He stretched back onto the cushions and within a minute, his heavy limbs had all but melted where he lay, and he was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that I don't own anything except my own ideas! If you notice mistakes, let me know, and have a good day! :))


	4. Part One, Chapter Four

    The early morning was inching closer to two when Dean looked around for the first time in four hours. He swiped the back of his hand against his sleepy eyes and switched the TV off. The stairs creaked slightly as he climbed them and he cringed, hoping that Cas wouldn’t be woken by the noise.

    He shouldn’t have worried, he came to see, when he noted that the light to the guest bedroom was still on. Figuring that Cas must have dozed off and forgotten to flip the switch, he stepped over to the door-frame the quietest he possibly could so that he could do it for him. But there he was, sitting up on the mattress with a book on his lap.

    “Cas?” Dean said, his voice rough from sleep.

    Cas looked up, taken by surprise, and he turned pink under his dusting of scruff. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “You said the books were in our room, and I wanted to… Well, I…”

    “You’re reading  _ Supernatural _ ?” Dean asked. He couldn’t believe it.

    “Yes.” He became sheepish and said, “I’m only on the first chapter. I woke up a few minutes ago and wanted to tire myself out again, but this is already quite an interesting read.”

    Dean shook his head in an attempt to shake off the sight of Cas, messy haired and tired, staring at him from across a room. If only he could close the distance.

    “Yeah—yes. They’re… They’re not bad.” Dean cleared his throat softly. “So uh, what part’re you at?”

    “Spencer has just heard a noise downstairs and is going to see what it was,” Cas told him, and grinned. “My eyes are aching but I want to find out what happens far more than I want to sleep.”

    “I could…” Dean tried to think of a way to suggest this without sounding like a weirdo. “Well, I mean—I could read it out loud. To you. For you—if you want. You know.”

    Cas considered this and, apparently on board, gave a nod. “I don’t see why not. Thanks.”

    “No problem, really. Not at all.” He accepted the hardcover from Cas and glanced around, Cas seemed to catch the drift because he motioned to the edge of the bed where his feet rested beneath the blankets.

    “You can sit, you know.”

    “Right. Of course.” Dean did so and then directed his attention to the page, where the inscription read _One:_ _Supernatural_.

    “Third paragraph,” Cas supplied.

    “Right,” Dean repeated. “Okay. Here goes. ‘The beads Rachel had attached to the top of the kitchen’s door-frame are rattled in the darkness and Spencer moves for the sound. He sees the figure, then, knelt down to raid the mini-fridge, and lifts his bat…’”

_     Spencer is woken by the sound of a window sliding open on the first floor. He’s struck with the memory that he forgot to lock it earlier that day, and his feet land silently on the hardwood before he realizes what he’s doing. _

_     He sees the window from where he stands on the staircase; whoever came inside left it open, the breeze of the night chilling Spencer’s bare arms. It’s Halloween. _

_     The beads Rachel had attached to the top of kitchen’s door-frame are rattled quietly and Spencer moves for the sound. He sees the figure, then, knelt down to raid the mini-fridge, and lifts his bat. _

_     “Hey,” he whispers, and the man stands. Without letting another second pass, Spencer swings, but as if he had been expecting it, the man catches the hit and yanks the bat away from him. Spencer plays it off—it isn’t like he hasn’t had to make use of his other faculties before. He knocks the figure’s legs out with a swift kick and he goes down; Spencer is quick to drop and hold him to the floor. The moon casts a strip of pale light across the man’s face, and Spencer’s grip loosens by a fraction. _

_     “ _ Dustin _?” _

_     Spencer receives an elbow to the face and is flipped onto his back before he can say another word, hands held down on either side of his head. He stares up at the offending grin. _

_     “Hey, little brother.” Spencer wrestles against him. “Easy there, tiger.” _

_     “You scared the crap out of me!” Spencer snaps at Dustin, who laughs lightly. _

_     “Well, don’t blame me,” he says. “Not my fault you’re out of practice.” Spencer snorts and butts his head against his brother’s, successfully knocking him off Spencer and onto the floor. _

_     “Screw you,” Spencer says as he pushes to his feet. Dustin lifts a hand for some help and Spencer grudgingly complies. “What’re you even doing here, man?” _

_     “I  _ was _ looking for a beer,” he tells Spencer with a grin, but is met only with a hard stare. “Alright, pleasantries are over; I can take a hint. Listen, we need to talk.” _

_     “And your phone is broken?” _

_     “As if you would’ve picked up,” Dustin retorts. The kitchen lights are flicked on, and the brothers glance to the doorway to see Rachel pushing through the beads, her gaze curious. _

_     “Spencer? What’s going on?” she asks. _

_     He walks to put an arm around Rachel and can feel the appreciative once-over Dustin sends her. “Dustin,” he says, pointedly, “this is my girlfriend, Rachel.” _

_     “Wait, your  _ brother _ Dustin?” A wide smile appears on Rachel’s face. “It’s so great to finally meet you!” _

_     “The feeling’s mutual,” Dustin assures her. He takes in her tank top and pajama shorts. “You know, you’re  _ way _ out of my brother’s league.” _

_     Rachel’s cheeks turn pink and she looks up at Spencer; she stands at least a foot below his chin. “We should all talk. Let me go put something on—” _

_     “No, no, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dustin’s voice stops her. “Seriously. But, uh, I do have to borrow your boyfriend here for just a second. Private family business, you know how it is.” _

_     “No,” Spencer says, pulling Rachel closer to his side. “Whatever you have to say you can say in front of Rachel.” _

_     “Spencer.” _

_     “Dustin.” _

_     Dustin’s eyes burn into his brother’s. “Fine, have it your way.” A pause. “Dad hasn’t been home in a few days.” _

_     Spencer shakes his head, his smile more annoyed than amused. “So he’s working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He’ll come stumbling in sooner or later.” _

_     Dustin, unsurprised by Spencer’s lack of concern, drops his head a for a moment before saying, “Dad’s on a  _ hunting _ trip. And he hasn’t been home in a few days.” He can see the gears of his brother’s brain process this, and without any change to his stony expression, Spencer says, “Rach’, would you excuse us? We have to go outside.” _

    Dean was more than ready to go on to the next scene, but when he lifted his eyes for a glance at his husband, it was clear that he was asleep. Dean set the book on the nightstand and stood, risking a kiss to Cas’ forehead before turning off the light and going to their room down the hall.

* * *

 

    Cas wasn’t sure that he wanted to get out of bed that Monday morning. Or, more truthfully, afternoon. He hadn’t moved since the night before and, despite the clock’s digital numbers on the bedside table telling him that it was nearing 12 o’clock, Cas couldn’t be bothered. He never stayed in bed past eight, not when any later meant that half the day had already been wasted, but it didn’t matter that he had control of his faculties: he felt helpless, and the most important faculty of all—his brain—had betrayed him. For all intents and purposes, he was crippled, and he could see what it did not only to  Dean, a man who was his supposed husband, but the way Cas’ lack of memory affected Sam and every other person that so clearly cared for the Cas they had known.

    Around seven, when he woke up, he had picked up  _ Supernatural _ from the table and flipped to the page that had a piece of paper tucked into its center. It was a signed bookmark from the author himself, the real name in place of the pen accompanied by a hand-drawn winking smiley face. He reread the dedication on the first page:  _ To the best brothers I know. _

__ As he had last night, Cas could feel his chest tighten. He wanted to remember, more than anything. He wanted to know why he had left Nebraska and his family behind in search of a new one, and how that had led him to Dean and Sam. Dean had told the story, but it was as illusory to Cas as the fantasy book he held in his hands. All these names, dates, places—they meant nothing, and he didn’t know if he would be able to fathom them into more than just words.

    He decided to keep reading  _ Supernatural _ . He idly wondered if Dean had left for work already, or if he’d opted to stay home for another weekday to make sure Cas was okay. Yet another piece of Dean’s life that Cas was distracting from just by being here. Maybe he would be better off without him, for now.

* * *

 

    Without any discussion, Dean had informed Guenther of his situation with Cas and that there was no way he could make it to the garage, possibly for a while. Guenther didn’t mind, not surprisingly, and wished Cas the best. Dean loved his work at the Auto Repair, and he didn’t like being cooped up at home while life moved on without him and Cas, but he really didn’t have much of a choice. He didn’t want to pawn Cas off to someone else to watch like a defenseless child—this was his  _ husband _ , not Bal.

    He didn’t expect Cas to remain in the guest room until noon, he had to admit, since Cas detested such laziness, but it wasn’t too odd. If anything, he understood. What else did Cas have to do all day around the house besides sleep, read, watch movies?

    “He wasn’t too freaked out by the lunch, right?” Sam asked.

    Dean rubbed his head, cell pressed to his ear. “Yeah, no, he was totally up to it at the time.”

    “What’s that mean?”

    “Just… we got home and he was fine, but he remembered something about Kearney and his ex. It kinda triggered a reaction I wasn’t ready for.” Dean stared at the ceiling. “Got defensive, stormed out.”

    “Maybe the damage to his head has something to do with that. You know, like a–a heightened unexpected-emotions kind of thing,” Sam suggested.

    “Yeah, maybe. I think it’s really just being here, you know?” Dean said. “A house—hell, a  _ town _ of memories he doesn’t have anymore.”

    “Right. But Patricio said that this would take time.”

    “Yeah, Sam, and he also said that Cas might never regain his memory of me and the last years of his life,” Dean replied, harsh but quiet. “I’m not exactly over here splitting at the seams with positivity.”

    “Well, hide it,” Sam said firmly. “I know this is a shitty hand but, trust me, Dean: Showing Cas your doubts will only push him away.”

    Dean knew his brother was right. Of course he was right. That didn’t keep this entire thing from sucking ass.

    “I should probably check on him,” he said. “He’s been in the guest room all morning.”

    “Maybe he needs time away from you, to wrap his head around this.”

    “And maybe he’s unconscious! I won’t bother him if he doesn’t want me around, Sam, no worries.”

    Sam sighed. “Dean, you know I didn’t mean—”

    “Bye, Sammy.” Dean hung up, already making for the staircase. He tried to keep his pace slow, unhurried, and his arrival to the doorway of Cas’ room showed that  _ Supernatural _ was again propped on his lap. Dean cleared his throat minimally. “A little light reading?”

    Cas looked up and smiled, just a little. “Yes. I’ve gotten to  _ Scarecrow _ . Dean is asking a professor about Pagan gods, but I think the professor is working with those who help the scarecrow.”

    “A detective in our midst.”

    Cas rolled his eyes. “It’s just a cliché. Not that I’m complaining; it’s still a fascinating read. I can’t imagine being so brave as to fight off bloodthirsty Wendigos, murderous ghosts.” Cas shook his head. “And when that shapeshifter became Dustin and tricked Spencer! I knew that would happen.”

    “I’ll be sure to send your reviews to Chuck,” Dean promised with a light laugh.

    “I would love to speak with him!” Cas agreed, not realizing that Dean was joking. “I could stay here all day if it meant finding out if Dustin and Spencer find Jacob and what killed their mother.”

    “And what about me?” Dean asked, an eyebrow quirked. “I’ve read all the books.”

    “I’ll have finished the entire series in no time at all, don’t worry,” Cas said. “And, you know, if you would rather go to the garage, Dean, I wouldn’t mind.”

    “I wouldn’t leave you here.”

    “But I’m completely fine,” Cas told him. “I can find my way around a house, I’m sure, and you shouldn’t be forced to stay with me.”

    “Cas, man, if I hadn’t wanted you here, you’d be in Nebraska.” Cas simply stared at him. “Are you serious?”

    “Yes.”

    “Fine,” Dean relented. Cas was stubborn as hell, even now. Dean shouldn’t be surprised by that. “I’ll go. But any issues come up, I’m here in a flash. You got it?”

    “Sure. Have a good day.”

    The pain in his abdomen spiking, Dean somehow managed a nod and, “Yeah, Cas, you too.” He took a step back and, with one last glance at Cas over his shoulder, he went to get changed for the garage after all.

* * *

 

    Cas allowed himself to ‘rest’ for another hour and decided around that time that he needed to move around at least a little bit. In Kearney, he’d jog every morning with either his brother or Hannah, because he knew that exercise was the key to a sound mind and body. Being blanketed down for days in a row like an invalid wasn’t his idea of being ‘sound’ in any way, shape, or form.

    Bal greeted Cas with a quiet bark and wag of his tail when his owner came down the stairs, and the dog’s obvious joy at Cas’ rubbing at his head with some affection encouraged a smile to Cas’ lips. It was nice to have someone—even if that meant a golden retriever—look at Cas like he wasn’t something  _ broken _ . Dean’s eyes always seemed to dim if Cas did or said the wrong thing, because he didn’t know what was right; it was as if Dean remembered that Cas wasn’t  _ whole _ anymore. At least, not the ‘whole’ Dean had given himself to.

    He’d grown used to those reactions, what with growing up in a house where being attracted to all people, regardless of sex or identity, wasn’t exactly seen as a positive attribute. Cas could never understand why they thought this way. He was sure that loving someone was about more than gender, he had always thought so, and being open to any kind of love was a blessing. He just really didn’t care so much about parts.

    Regardless to whatever he believed, his parents didn’t agree. They’d rather he date girls and it wasn’t a problem, he liked girls just fine. But he didn’t want to ignore a piece of what made him  _ Cas _ , what helped to distinguish him from the womanizing Ishim and his ilk.

    He had morals and principles, he held true to them, and this served to toughen him throughout his younger years. He ignored other kids if they sneered cruel things, because he knew one would catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, no matter what. Cas listened to his parents, because that was easier to do than argue. He fell in love with a girl when he was newly 16, her name was Hannah. From what Cas could remember about Hannah, he adored her, and she felt the same. But now he was going to be 31 and the one person he’d relied on for years of his life, aside from Ishim, was nowhere to be found. It was incredibly unnerving and, despite being in what was supposed to be his home, sat here on the sofa, Cas felt homesick for a place he no longer knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! I hope your week has been good so far :) Maybe this update made it better, I don't know lol Let me know your thoughts down below, and have a great weekend!!


	5. Part One, Chapter Five

****     Cas had resigned himself to a day of burying himself (figuratively) into  _ Dr. Sexy, M.D. _ It was, admittedly, drivel, but it was a guilty pleasure and he hadn’t been aware—or perhaps he had been, before, but no longer—that another six seasons had been released. Cas considered this to be a pretty huge deal and a binge-watch was perfect for his current situation. So it was when the sexy doctor, smolder and all, was in the middle of another heart-wrenching monologue that Cas heard the garage door go up. He jumped to his feet but didn’t have the chance to dial 911 because Charlie appeared with an awkward smile and both hands in the air.

    “Just me.”

    “Charlie.” Her corkscrew tresses were tightened into a ponytail, and her flannel/jeans combo was reminiscent of something Cas was quite certain Dean would wear. He idly wondered if they shopped together, or somehow shared clothing, but aloud asked, “What are you doing here?”

    “Figured I’d stop by, see how things are going. With you,” she said, gesturing without purpose. “You know… adjusting.”

    “Oh.” Cas paused his program and smiled sheepishly. “It’s going great, as you can probably tell.”

    Charlie grinned a little in response. “I don’t know what you mean—This is a normal day for you. I’ve never understood your guys’ obsession with this show, though.”

    “It’s a series that consists of attractive men and women,” Cas said, as though it were obvious. Charlie supposed it was and nodded in agreement.

    “But you shouldn’t stay here all day,” she told him reasonably. “Let’s go out.”

    “Out? Where?”

    “About! I don’t know.” Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and just as quickly released them back to her sides. If Cas had to guess he would saw she was restless, or maybe feeling awkward, but he didn’t want to make any assumptions. “I could show you around Lawrence.”

    “Is there much to see?”

    Taking his genuine query as a joke, Charlie snorted. “It’ll be great, trust me.” She eyed him. “Unless you really would rather spend your day here.”

    Cas thought about the plans he had loosely made for the rest of that Wednesday: TV, books, eating himself into a stupor. “Let’s go,” he said quickly.

* * *

 

    It turned out that there wasn’t an overwhelming amount of tourist hot-spots in Dean’s town. Cas couldn’t say he was surprised, since the most he’d heard of Kansas receiving publicity had been regarding a fictional tale about a tornado and a yellow brick road.

    Charlie had just pointed out another corner shop, and then a beat of silence had prompted her to admit, “So, I guess ‘great’ was a bit of an exaggeration.”

    “No, not at all,” Cas said with a smile her way. They drove on down the street and the quiet wasn’t uncomfortable. Spending the afternoon together had softened Cas toward the young woman, and he could easily see how he could have befriended her. Charlie was unimaginably witty and considerate, very much like Dean. Cas was certain that the man he’d been, with all the memories, couldn’t have been more grateful to have such good people in his life.

    When Charlie pulled into the driveway once more, she said, “Well, here we are,” but neither of them moved aside from a simple nod from Cas. “It was nice today,” she went on. “Hanging with you.”

    “It was nice,” Cas agreed, and meant it. He hesitated, then said, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

    A smile appeared on the young woman’s face when she said that she would. The chatted as Cas prepared the water and tea bags, but it tapered off as they settled onto the couch. Cas had so many questions that he wanted to have answers too, but he didn’t know where to begin. He watched Charlie run her free hand through Bal’s fur with a happy smile on her face, and was encouraged to say, “Could you tell me a bit about all of this?”

    Charlie looked at him. “All of what?”

    “This life,” Cas said. He blushed a little. “I’ve asked Dean so much already, and I feel guilty every time because I can see how it pains him. Not that I don’t think it’s hard for you, of course, but I just have no one—”

    “Cas, it’s okay,” Charlie assured him, a mixture of confusion and amusement on her face. “I get it. I’m sure Dean’s told you most of what you want to know, though, am I right?”

    Cas pondered for a moment. Dean really had, in fact, told him a lot. How they met, Dean’s family, the book that had evidently been inspired by Dean and Sam’s life with Cas thrown in later on. It was all wild, but the one thing Dean hadn’t delved into had left Cas wondering.

    “He didn’t talk about our wedding,” Cas said. “He mentioned the date, but not the event itself.”

    Charlie laughed a little. “Alright. God, that was so much fun, you can’t even begin to imagine.” She tried to think. “You and Dean wore matching suits, a given, except your tie was green and his was blue.”

    “Why?”

    “To match each other’s eye color.” Cas turned red and Charlie grinned. “I’m telling you, it was the cheesiest, most romantic shit I’ve ever seen and I was only, like, 13 at the time. So obviously you couldn’t be married legally, which neither of you cared about, but the day was absolutely perfect. Dean and Sam have such a huge extended family; they all pitched in to make the food and a cake. And back then Dean knew a guy in a band to play at the reception… Watching you two dance made me want to fall in love. Everything just came together.” Charlie, having looked off like she were picturing the wedding in her head, looked back to Cas with a smile. “It was perfect,” she said, and then frowned. “Cas, why’re you crying? I didn’t mean to…”

    Cas hadn’t even realized that his eyes were wet until she mentioned it. He wiped the tears away and shook his head, trying to smile. “No, no,” he said quickly, “I’m sorry. It just sounds beautiful. Too good to be true.”

    Charlie smiled again, but it was sadder. “It was. But that’s always been you and Dean. We have tons of pictures in an album, too, if you want to see them.”

    “Maybe another time.”

    Charlie nodded, understanding, just as the door to the garage opened up. Cas glanced outside and saw that it had suddenly become night. A glance at the clock showed that it was past eight. Time had flown by with Charlie that day, it seemed.

    “Hey, Dean,” she said upon his entrance to the house.

    He looked between his husband and friend, dropping his keys onto the counter. “Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

    “Just brilliant,” Charlie answered. “Cas and I hung out today and gossiped about you.”

    “No, you didn’t,” Dean said with an eye roll and a kiss to Charlie’s head. He dropped one onto Cas’ as a reflex, and immediately flinched backward as though he were afraid to move. “Cas, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think—”

    “It’s alright,” Cas said easily. “Really.”

    Dean seemed to relax minimally and said, “So today was okay?”

    “Any day spent with me is good.”

    “I’m beginning to believe her,” Cas said sagely, and Charlie grinned at him. “Although now I realize that we haven’t eaten dinner because I’ve made nothing for us. Fantastic.”

    “I’m usually the chef anyway. I’ll flip some burgers, if that’s okay with y’all.”

    “Sounds great,” Charlie and Cas said in unison.

    Dean looked to the sky as they laughed together. “Just like old times. God, help me.”

* * *

 

    In the end, Cas ended up insisting that the whole gang come over for dinner. Dean was unsure, but Cas seemed so certain that he decided to just let Cas have this one and called everyone up to get their asses over to the Winchester residence. It had been a night of laughter, gathered at the dining table, and now they sat outside, a warm bonfire glowing in the middle of their circle.

    Sam and Jess were snuggled together, the former’s arm curled naturally around Jessica’s waist; Bess and Garth allowed their knees to touch; Charlie and Cas sat side by side wearing matching smiles. Dean looked around at them all and felt lighter than he had in a week.

    “You know, I had my first s’more when I was 13,” Cas told everyone.

    “No way,” Jess said, jaw dropped.

    “Yes way. My mother hates sugar and refused to let me try them. I only got the one I did because my brother made them in the microwave for us both.” Cas laughed, open and happy. “It made such a mess, and Mother grounded us for a week a piece.”

    “But was it worth it?” Charlie asked.

    “Oh, definitely.” They laughed and when Cas looked at Dean, he saw that Dean was already watching him. He leaned slightly his way to ask, “Everything okay?”

    “Yeah, yeah,” Dean assured him, like he’d been shaken from a dream. “This is nice, is all.” Crickets chirped, the breeze blew, owls called into the dark. How many nights just like this one had Dean experienced? How different had they been?

    Cas smiled softly, nodded once, and then turned to chat quietly with Charlie. It was nearing one in the morning, Dean noted, and they were all bone tired. Even Bal was resting near Dean’s foot, head pressed against the stone ground.

    “Should we call it?” Dean asked the group.

    “Probably for the best,” Garth agreed, giving a hand to Bess.

    Melting into Sam’s side, Jess said, “Give us a call for whatever.”

    “Don’t hesitate,” Sam added.

    “Sure,” Dean said. He hugged them both, as well as Bess and Garth, and let them find their own way out after they gave goodbyes to Charlie and Cas. He looked to them and lifted his hands. “Charlie, you sleepin’ over?” he enquired, winking.

    “Ha ha,” she replied, which made Dean laugh. She hugged him tight, and couldn’t have looked happier if she tried than afterward when Cas enveloped her in his arms too. “Love you, guys,” she murmured, and then took her leave. Dean grabbed the blankets from the wooden benches and followed Cas into the house, sliding the door closed behind them.

    “What a pleasant evening,” Cas said. “Do we do that often?”

    “Summers, mostly, cuz of Sam’s classes. But it’s always nice.”

    “Must be.” Cas chewed the inside of his cheek as he watched Dean fill the dishwasher. “Could you read again tonight?”

    Dean looked at his husband in some surprise. “’Course, Cas. Where’re you at?”

    “I’m on the second chapter of book two.”

    Dean whistled, low, and said, “Damn, you weren’t kidding when you said you’d finish those books in no time. Go on up and get your pajamas on; I’ll be up to read soon.”

    “I can help you clean up.”

    “Nah, it’s all good.” When Cas didn’t move, Dean grinned a little, eyes gentle. “Go on.”

    With reluctance, Cas nodded and went upstairs. Within ten minutes, Dean had arrived in the guest bedroom in a white T and sweatpants.

    “Let’s see what we got,” he said, rubbing his hands together expectantly. Castiel handed him the book and Dean read off, “‘Everybody Loves a Clown’,” then laughed. “Oh, boy. Not everybody.” Castiel gave him a look and Dean’s grin widened. “Let’s get into, shall we?” He moved to stretch out on the bed beside Cas, and then paused. “Is this okay?”

    “Yes,” Cas answered without thinking.

    Dean only nodded and adjusted,  _ Born Under a Bad Sign _ in hand.

    “Chapter two, ‘Everybody Loves a Clown.’”  
  


* * *

 

_ “I’m sorry that the last time I was with him I tried to pick a fight,” Spencer says. “I’m sorry that I spent most of my life angry at him.” He shakes his head, a bitter smile on his face. “Hell, for all I know Dad died thinking that I hate him. So you were right, Dustin: What I’m doing right now, it’s too little, too late.” Spencer fights back the tremble he feels in his lips in a blatant refusal to cry in front of his older brother. A moment passes where both are silent. _

_     “I miss him, man,” he admits eventually. “And I feel guilty as all hell. And I’m not okay, maybe not even a little bit. But neither are you. That much I know.” Spencer waits for Dustin to speak, to say anything at all, but when he doesn’t, Spencer backs off and leaves him to his car. _

    Dean stops in his reading when he sees a clear drop land on the page. He’d started to cry without even noticing. He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand and breathed in. He and Sam, though they had never told Chuck about it, had had a conversation similar to this one. While Dustin had taken a crowbar to a junker’s window, the reality had ended with Dean punching a wall and busted knuckles because the pain of losing their father had been so bad. Although John and Sam had been dissimilar to Spencer and Jacob in that they got along alright, Sam had spent a while ignoring their father because of his disapproval of Dean’s sexuality. It angered Sam that John had been so obstinate to acceptance, and that had negatively impacted his own relationship with their father.

    “We all missed a lot of years, Dean,” he could still recall Sam saying. “I did it for you, and I can’t regret that, but I know it’s gotten to you the worst.”

    As he had been then, Cas sat here now with a look of concern on his face.

    “Dean,” he said, and Dean shook his head.

    “Sorry, man. Didn’t quite remember how this chapter ended.”

    “I’m sorry,” Cas said, voice sincere.

    “Don’t be. Got nothing to be sorry for. Wanna trade off? You read a chapter now?”

    Cas took the book by way of answer and flipped the page, ignoring his desire to wipe the wetness from Dean’s eyes.

* * *

 

    By four, they had nearly finished book two of the series. They read until they physically couldn’t anymore, and that’s how the sun found them: Dean’s head lolled on the pillow naturally toward Castiel’s breathing while Cas lay on his side facing Dean, hands folded in front of his chest. When Dean woke up in a stretch, that was the best thing he could’ve hoped to see.

   As though he could feel Dean’s gaze, Cas opened his blue eyes into green and smiled.

   “Good morning,” he said, voice gruff.

   “To you too.”

   “Heading to the garage?”

   “I guess so,” Dean said, reluctant. But it was Tuesday, after all, and it was nearly ten now. “I can stay.”

    “No, no,” Cas said, yawning as he pushed onto his elbows. His hair was mussed and his eyes were crinkled beautifully. Fuck. Dean needed to get out of there. “It’s okay. Go, have a good day at work.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah. See you when you get home.”   
    Hearing Cas saying that about this house again made Dean’s entire being glow. It may not have been possible for a person to literally emanate light, but it sure felt that way right then.

    “Sure. Don’t do anything too stupid while I’m gone.”

    “If I plan to do something stupid, I’ll let you know.”   
    Dean grinned and shoved off the bed before  _ he _ could do something stupid, like kiss that teasing smile off his husband’s face.

    Castiel fell back onto the mattress and couldn’t help but feel good. The previous night with so many good people had filled him with such contentment, and he’d been a little scared that he wouldn’t have that without the memories to accompany the faces. It still seemed that they wouldn’t be making a reappearance anytime soon, but for now Cas thought that maybe he could live with it. Perhaps making new memories could be good. And making them with a man as deeply kind (and honest-to-God sexy) as Dean wouldn’t be the worst thing either.

    He read until he finished the book, and was just leaving Dean’s bedroom with the third in the series ready to go when he heard his mobile ringing from the guest room. He didn’t make it in time and so had to redial the missed call. He folded his hand beneath the opposite elbow and waited.

    “Hello?” a woman’s voice answered.

    Cas could feel the air leave his body as he whispered, “Hannah?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything in regards to the show or any dialogue I use/edit to fit the idea of the book series. I hope you like the story so far :))


	6. Part Two, Chapter One

****     “Castiel, it’s you.”

    “Hannah,” he repeated, dumb-founded. “How—I can’t believe it.”

    “Your surprise can’t be greater than mine,” she said, breathless. “Castiel, I called to tell you that I want you to come home.” For a second, Cas forgot what she meant by that, and then he realized that she meant Kearney. Kearney, where they’d grown up and fallen for each other. He was surprised at how quickly he’d forgotten that, from just one night. “I’ve given you space to be in Kansas, as your parents requested,” Hannah was saying, “but I… I miss you, Cas.”

    “Hannah, I can’t just leave.” But Castiel suddenly couldn’t remember why. Sure, he and Dean were apparently married, but it wasn’t even legal. And hearing her voice, the voice of the woman he loved… It felt like yesterday that they had spoken. Not for the first time, Cas had to wonder why he had taken off from her and his family in the first place. Sure, the Novaks could be irksome, but they were his blood. And Hannah… His plan had been to marry her; he could remember that, at least.

    “Why not? I’m still here, after seven years. We have a second chance, Castiel.”

    “I need time to—I need to think about this,” Cas told Hannah. “I’ll tell you soon.” He hung up, an  _ I love you _ stuck to his lips, and tried to breathe.

* * *

 

    When Dean arrived back to the house, he couldn’t decipher the change in Cas’ mood. Just that morning he’d been so much like his old self, and now Dean found him sat on the couch reading in unhappy silence.

    “You okay?”

    “I’m fine.”

    “Alright,” Dean said, unconvinced. “Well, I picked up some Chinese from the usual place. Figured you’d be hungry.”

    “I don’t know what the usual place is,” Cas said under his breath, and when Dean said, “What?” he repeated, louder and harsher, “I don’t know what the  _ usual place _ is, Dean!”

    Dean stopped, walking forward with his hands in the air. “Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. What happened today to get you so tense?”

    “Nothing,” Cas said, suddenly tired. He stood, closing the book, and his face revealed exactly that: nothing. “Thank you, Dean, but I’m not hungry.” Completely lost and helpless to change that, Dean watched Cas disappear up the staircase.

    “Table for one, then,” he muttered to himself.

* * *

 

    Breakfast the following morning was awkward. Dean had no idea what he could have done to make Cas so silent, and Cas didn’t know how to tell Dean about Hannah’s wanting him to return to Kearney. He also didn’t know if that’s what he wanted. He had absolutely no inkling what it was that he wanted in regard to anything, and it was all making Cas’ head spin.

    Dean decided that letting Cas work it out on his own was for the best. They said goodbyes and Cas spent the day distracting himself with television. After a while, though, even that didn’t work.

    What was he going to do? The way he saw it, he had two options: one was to remain with Dean and everyone else in Lawrence, where they would be endless bonfires and s’mores and cozy nights reading together; or option two, which was to go back to Nebraska and see why he had left and met Dean at all. He didn’t like having those loose ends; it made something inside him itch. And it weren’t as though returning to Kearney meant never coming back to Kansas.

    Castiel sighed. Maybe he had made up his mind, after all. He just needed to figure out how he would tell his husband that he was leaving him.

* * *

 

    In a reversal to the night before, Dean walked in and smelled sauce; and Castiel wasn’t sulking on the couch, but instead setting a serving bowl of pasta onto the tabletop.

    “You made dinner,” Dean observed.

    “I did,” Cas replied. “I hope you’re hungry.”

    “Sure, I was planning on Chinese leftovers, but this is even better. Thank you.”

    Cas nodded and motioned for Dean to have a seat. He couldn’t breathe and wanted to hide under his duvet but knew that he needed to tell Dean his plans sooner rather than later.

    “Tell me about the upcoming wedding,” he said, very much aware that he was stalling.

    “Well, Sam and Jess’re doin’ it here,” Dean began, sipping his beer to wash down a mouthful of pasta. “They liked a couple places around where they live but there’s quite  few of us and to get everyone over there would be too much, money and all that.”

    “But they’re happy?”

    “Oh, yeah. Stressed, of course, but I swear, I’ve never seen anyone so in love as they are., ’cept maybe...” Dean hesitated, but ultimately shut his mouth. Cas could guess what he’d wanted to say—that he and Dean were the other couple so in love. It only added to the guilt that Cas was feeling, so he allowed casual conversation for just a couple more minutes until he knew that he had to speak up on his true reason for sitting here tonight. Otherwise, he was kind of thinking he would explode.

    “Dean, I have to talk to you.”

    “We are talkin’,” Dean replied, twirling spaghetti on his fork.

    “Well, I’m afraid this is about something more serious than what type of cars you worked on today. I... I wish it weren’t.” Cas gathered his thoughts, and Dean waited. There was this look in his eyes, like he was attempting to appear calm when he was in fact ready to spiral, and Cas didn’t know how to handle that. Did the with-memories-Cas know how? “Dean, I’m going to Nebraska.”

    “You’re what?” Dean asked, the hand holding his fork landing on the table with a thud.

    “I’m going back to Kearney. I need to see my family.”

    “What… What brought this on?”

    “Hannah called. I—”

    “Your  _ ex _ Hannah?” Dean said, working to keep his voice even. “Hannah-you-haven’t-mentioned-in-years Hannah?”

    “I mentioned her the other night,” Cas pointed out meekly.

    “You know what I mean,” Dean snapped. He inhaled through his teeth. “Cas, I don’t get this. I thought you were happy.”

    “Dean, this isn’t about being happy,” Cas said, his voice taking on an edge of its own. “I feel like—I feel like I’ve woken up in someone else’s life. Do you understand? You were married to a man I don’t know. It’s different now, Dean. Everything feels different and I…” Cas stopped to take a breath. “I don’t think I can fix that here.”

    Dean stared hard at the tabletop. After a few moments had gone by, he looked at Cas. “So, that’s it. Not even a week and you’re bailing on us?”

    “I’m trying to keep my sanity. It isn’t exactly easy living in a house where on every wall I’m faced with another photo of myself that I don’t remember having taken. Another memory, another moment I may never get back.” Cas shook his head. “I just can’t, not if going home could give me what this place can’t.”

    “Yesterday morning ‘this place’  _ was _ home,” Dean said, desperate. “Cas, I love you. Jesus Christ. I fucking love you.”

    “I’m sorry. Okay?” Cas pushed away from the table. “I’m sorry.” Once again he left Dean alone, no confusion this time around, only hurt.

* * *

 

    “That can’t be  _ it _ .”

    “Sam, I’m telling you; he’s got a plane ticket for tomorrow afternoon.” Dean ran his palm across his face. He hated this feeling of helplessness, the complete inability to change this situation. He and Cas were supposed to be together and had planned on being together for the rest of their lives. And now he was abandoning their life, just like that?

    “So you’re letting him go?” Sam demanded.

    “What the fuck else am I expected to do, Sam?” Dean asked sarcastically. “He wants to go; he isn’t a goddamn prisoner here!”

    “But you—” Sam breathed in, shaky. “I just don’t get this. Everything was fine.”

    “Hannah got it in his head to go back to Kearney so that’s what he’s doing. That stupid seed of doubt’s fucked everything up.” Dean was so  _ tired _ . Against reason, he had held on to the hope that Cas would like being with him so much that memories wouldn’t make a difference; and that along the way, maybe they’d come back on their own and everything would be sort of like before. That hope was destroyed now, and he just didn’t want to be awake. “It’s my fault for having faith.” He huffed out, shaking his head. “Should’ve known better.”

    “Dean, no. You were right to believe in what you and Cas had. What you  _ still  _ have.” Sam went quiet, thinking. “Look, I can’t say I know how this’ll turn out. I just don’t know. But for now, I think you gotta let Cas take the reins. Let him go to Nebraska, remember why it is he left those assholes… And then…”

    “And then, what?” Dean said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Repeat 1997 over again?”

    “No, shut up. Just that maybe it’ll make him come back to you. And who’s to say that he won’t get his memories back on the plane halfway to Kearney?”

    “Yeah,” muttered Dean. He took a swig from his beer, eyes on the ceiling. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

* * *

 

    In the end, Dean refused to let Cas call a cab.  Things may have been bad, but they weren’t so bad that he would allow the man he loved to drive off down the street and to the airport in a fucking cab.

    It felt horrible, being the one to deliver Cas to start his new, old life, and part of Dean wanted to die. He was sure part of him would when he watched Cas walk through those double sliding doors, glance back for a half second with this look in his eyes that Dean would have to see for who knew how long in sleep, and disappear into the crowds.

    Dean made it back to the house and to the first step of the staircase, where he sat down and cried in the hopes that if he did so long enough, he would forget this whole mess. When he went to bed that night, he sort of hoped that he wouldn’t wake up in the morning, and that was a feeling he hadn’t experienced since he was living under John’s roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick update! Happy Halloween to those who celebrate :) And if I haven't replied to a comment, it's because every time I try Ao3 says that that function isn't working, for whatever reason. I do see them, though, and they still make me so happy. I'll reply ASAP. Thanks, everyone!!


	7. Part Two, Chapter Two

****     For the first time in a decade, Cas disembarked onto Nebraskan soil. He wasn’t entirely certain what he was feeling in the moment he spotted his family, or when he received an embrace from his mother, a handshake from his father, and wide eyes from Ishim.

    “Hello,” Cas said, a smile pulling up his mouth. He went in for a hug, which Ishim returned enthusiastically. On top of the enthusiasm was something else, like hesitance, as if Ishim finding himself wanting to be hugged by his brother were a crazy scenario to be in. But Cas couldn’t be totally sure, and taken into account that Cas had been unsure about  a lot of things these past few days, he let this instance pass.

    “Castiel,” Ishim said. His grin was huge and wolfish, as it always had been, but his hair had begun to gray. “Jesus, kid! How’ve you been?”

    “Just fine,” Cas replied. “Confused.”

    “Don’t worry about that now,” Lauren swooped in, her arm twining easily through her son’s. “You’re home, you’re safe, and everyone is so excited to see you back at the estate.”

    “Wait, Mother, you haven’t planned an entire event on my return, have you?”

    “Oh, of course not; just a few friends and what not.”

    And of course, this was a lie. When Cas entered his house, he was greeted by excited shouts and cheers and almost immediately people were swarming him like moths to a lamp. He sent panicked eyes to Lauren, who shrugged as though she’d had no hand in this. Cas rolled his eyes to the ceiling all the while trying to smile at those vying for his attention. The only person he wanted to see, though, was hanging back with her hands fidgeting in front of her,

    “Hannah,” Cas murmured to himself, and sent apologies to the people around him as he pushed past to reach her. Once he had made it, he saw new lines on her face, her hair was a shade darker than its usual brown, but her eyes were the same as he remembered. Before he could stop himself, he dropped his lips against hers. Although she responded, it was not immediate and Cas pulled away in the realization that he hadn’t kissed her in about ten years. Who was to say he was even still allowed?

    He began to stammer an apology, but Hannah quieted him with a gentle pat to his hand. “It’s okay,” she told him.

    “We should really talk.”

    “I agree. For now, everyone has missed you. Go on, mingle.”

    As reluctant as he may have been upon first entering, Cas welcome the greetings from all the friends and family that had come to visit him. It didn’t seem like so long since he had seen them all, but he knew that it had in fact been a while and he hated that once again, he had no idea why that was. His home-life had never been a walk in the park, but these people were his family, after all.

    “How have you been, Cas?” one of Ishim’s old buddies asked.

    “Alright. It’s been an interesting few days.”

    Cas didn’t know how to answer a lot of what he was asked. It became increasingly obvious that his parents hadn’t informed the group about Castiel’s memory loss, and he had to improvise in more than one conversation in order to keep it going smoothly. By the end of the day, he was exhausted, and just wanted to sleep it off. Hannah lingered by the front door, and he decided that his bed would have to wait.

   They settled onto the sofa in the den and she waited for him to speak.

    “I have no idea what has happened,” he said.

    “All I can say is that you were unhappy here,.” Although Hannah sounded sad, there was mostly resignation to her words. “You left for school—”

    “I can’t remember anything after that. I can recall my first year, for the most part, but everything that follows is just—blank.” Cas wrung his hands. “It’s like I was comatose for all those years and woke up in 2005 where suddenly I have a new family and they all expect me to be a man I have no memory of ever being.” He dropped his head and Hannah put a tentative hand to his back in comfort.

    “I know,” she said. “But even if you can’t ever remember the past few years, we’re here for you, all of us.”

    Cas looked at Hannah, his eyes wet. “Thank you.”

    “Of course.”

    “I know it sounds insane, but it doesn’t feel like we’re broken up,” Cas said after a second. “I know we must have, but it’s almost as though I went to bed ten years ago and woke up now to see you sitting here. Like nothing’s changed. And your call to me; you didn’t seem… attached to anyone currently.”

    Hannah’s cheeks tinted and she shook her head. “I’m not. Attached to anyone. There’s been a couple over the years you’ve been gone but otherwise… I’m all yours.”

    Cas couldn’t help smiling at that. “That’s good. I mean, if you…. want to be. I want you to be.”

    “Good.”

    “Good,” Cas said, and kissed her.

* * *

 

    Dean visited his parents’ graves that week. He updated them on all that had happened, and he could almost feel his father’s hand clapping his back, his gruff voice saying, “You’ll make it through, son.” He wanted to believe that, really he did, but Dean didn’t know if he could. He scratched Bal’s ears, knees pulled to his chest where he sat in front of the gravestones.

    “I don’t know what to do. You know, the only thing he took from the house when he left was the last two books in the  _ Supernatural  _ series.” Dean had to chuckle a little. When he’d first noticed they were gone, his laughter had given way to tears. This time, though, he just smiled as he glanced between his parents.

    “Sam and Jess feel all kinds of awful about this whole thing; everyone does. I just want him to find whatever it is he needs to find, and maybe then he’ll…” Dean looked upward, thinking. “Maybe then he’ll wanna come back. I don’t know.”

    He pressed a kiss to his fingertips and gave it to both gravestones, then walked back for the Impala, Bal trailing at Dean’s side.

    “What d’you think, buddy?” Dean asked the retriever. “You reckon Cas’ll come back to us?” Bal barked quietly, momentarily rubbing his nose against Dean’s leg , and he grinned sadly. “Yeah. I guess we’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! I hope your Halloween was spooktacular! (I'm sorry.) I know this is short, but the next update should be here by Sunday :)) Thanks for reading and have a good weekend!


	8. Part Two, Chapter Three

****Apart from the usual sense of sexual oppression Cas had always expected to feel in his house, everything was looking up. He recognized the photos on the walls, his bedroom was the same as he’d left it, the whole place smelled exactly as it did in his memory. He felt comfortable being in a familiar space and was grateful that after so long, his family had opened their arms to his return, whatever the reason may have been for his leaving.

    On that subject, however, whenever he tried to get details, everyone seemed to clam up and move to a different topic entirely. It always left him more confused, but he tried not to let it get to him. Whatever it was probably didn’t matter after a decade. The other side of Cas’ brain, though, told him that it had been enough to make him leave Kearney those years ago, and enough of an issue that his family avoided it now. So, he was torn between wanting to have a solid answer other than ‘he hadn’t been happy here,’ and wanting to just let go of the whole thing and live like he’d never left.

    The following two weeks after Cas’ arrival were spent that way, but also in true high spirits. He and Hannah spent almost every day together to make up for lost time, whether it meant they were at a restaurant for a date, a movie, walking in a park, it didn’t matter as long as they side by side.

    Cas dedicated time to Ishim as well, the lifelong bachelor (one messy divorce later). He no longer lived in his apartment, but in a lavish penthouse that Cas almost hadn’t believed could exist in Kearney. New York City, maybe, or Chicago, but not Kearney.

    But as close to Ishim as he had always been, Cas now felt a space between them that he sure as hell hadn’t placed there. For some reason Cas couldn’t quite discern, Ishim was holding back, and even Hannah after a few days seemed more hesitant in anything they spoke about or chose to do. It became apparent that something was not being said to Cas, and he wanted to know even more than he had before.

    He had just finished a meal with his brother and girlfriend. As he liked to do, Cas was washing the dishes they’d used and humming to himself, content. After a little while of this, he noticed that Ishim and Hannah had disappeared, and when he turned off the water, he could hear them arguing quietly in the bedroom. He hesitated, aware that it was none of his business, but then again, this was his brother and his girlfriend.

    Cas moved toward the door, almost not breathing, and listened.

    “...what you think!”

    He heard Ishim scoff. “What I think? I think I don’t ... up a good thing!”

    “It will be messed up … help from us if he remembers,” Hannah whispered back savagely. “Or have you forgotten that crucial detail?”

    Cas returned to the sink and stood with his hands against the edge. What had they been talking about? Had they been fighting about him? They returned soon after while Cas had busied himself drying Ishim’s plates and silverware. He acted like he hadn’t paid their absence any mind during dessert, but as soon as he was done he announced, “I’m wiped out. Mind if I duck out early?”

    “Are you sure?” Hannah asked. “We haven’t been here that long...”

    “The man’s tired, he should rest,” Ishim said. If Cas hadn’t overheard their argument, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the biting edge to his brother’s tone., or the clench to Hannah’s jaw. “I’ll see you tomorrow, brother. I can give Hannah a ride to her place.”

    Hannah looked at Cas, expecting him to refuse the offer, but all Cas said was, “Sounds good,” gave a kiss to her cheek that he wasn’t entirely certain she deserved, and left.

* * *

 

    For only the second time since being in Nebraska, Cas read that night. He needed to get the events at Ishim’s out of his mind, and so he began _When the Levee Breaks_ , the fourth book in Chuck’s series. If Cas remembered correctly, this would be the one in which the angelic character based off of him, Levanael, would first appear. Cas laughed to himself in his bedroom. It was funny that Chuck had found him to be so virtuous in reality that his fictional counterpart had to be a literal angel. Not for the first time, Cas thought that he’d really like to meet Chuck Shurley.

     _Dustin can’t breathe._

_Okay, he can sort of breathe, but it’s like inhaling dirt, and that’s almost worse._

_All he knows is that he is awake and pounding against something wooden that hovers just a few inches above his face. He attempts a yell, tries to say anything, but his throat is raw and the only sounds that escape it are strangled, as if he hasn’t used his voice in weeks. That’s new._

_His fists are beaten bloody by the time he shoves off the top of what he discerns to be a shoddily-made casket, claws his way up to the earth’s surface, and drags his body out of the ground. Weary, he lay there for what may be an hour or only five minutes, trying to catch his breath. His throat still burns, and it does him no favors that the sun in the sky sizzles down on him like he’s an egg in a pan._

_Dustin stumbles to his feet, and finally takes a look around. There is a wooden cross where his body had been, his name inscribed presumably by Sam’s blade—and all around him are trees knocked flat to the dirt where they grew._

* * *

 

     _The man doesn’t seem to mind Dustin’s impertinence. He seems almost above it, aloof, and Dustin has the inkling that nothing could ruffle this guy’s feathers._

_“I am an Angel of the Lord.”_

_Dustin wishes that, of all the idioms, he hadn’t thought of the one involving feathers._

_“Yeah, and I’m Gene Simmons,” he retorts, working to keep his voice from betraying his fear. Clearly Levanael missed the reference, because his face remains as expressionless as ever. “If you’re an angel, then why’d you burn out that woman’s eyes?”_

_“She shouldn’t have spied on me in my true form; it can be overwhelming to those that aren’t meant to see it. As can my true voice, as you experienced at that gas station.”_

_“That screeching was you talking?” Dustin snorts. “You should really work on that.” He pauses, incredulous. “Wait, your true form? What form is this, then? Holy tax accountant?”_

_Levanael glances down at his body, careless. “This is a... vessel.”_

_Dustin’s face darkens. “So you’re possessing some poor bastard?”_

_“He prayed to be an agent for our cause; this wasn’t—”_

_“Well, I’m not buying whatever it is you’re trying to pedal, girl scout,” Dustin snaps. “Either tell me who you really are, who really sent you, or we’re gonna have a problem.”_

_“I already told you.”_

_“Yeah, and what? Why would an Angel rescue_ me _from Hell?”_

_“Dustin, good things do happen.” ‘Not in my experience,’ Dustin wants to counter, but he keeps his mouth shut. Levanael tilts his head and looks at Dustin as if he were reading into his mind. “I see. You don’t think you deserved to be saved from Perdition.”_

_“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve done a few bad things over the years.” Dustin swallows. “And down there. So why’d you do it?”_

_“Because God commanded it. Because He has work for you.”_

* * *

 

    Three hours later, Cas was still reading. As he went on, he saw that there were particular bits underlined more so than there had been in the other books, and even comments in the margins. He recognized some of the writing as his own, and another that he realized had to be Dean’s. Particularly in scenes between Lev and Dustin, there were notes from Dean such as, _Man, Lev and Dustin really gotta bone! Damn!_ , and even hand-drawn hearts. Cas had evidently replied to these with sweet words of his own, and the intimacy of the exchanges made Cas now close the book.

* * *

 

    Two days went by and still neither Ishim nor Hannah had mentioned Wednesday’s argument to Castiel. His worries hadn’t lessened in that time, as there was a palpable tension between the two whenever they were within the same vicinity, and his parents were just as tense.

    In an attempt to reconcile the situation, Lauren insisted on a family dinner for that night, and Cas wanted to say that that was maybe the last thing he wanted to do. Of course, and as per usual, he had no real say in the matter and would have to go along with whatever his mother planned.

    Cas poked at the duck on his plate. He suddenly missed the hamburgers Dean had made what felt like so long ago now, and the gooey marshmallows around the bonfire with those friendly, welcoming folks. Sitting here and listening to awkward small-talk, Cas deeply missed Charlie and the story of her Princess Leia tattoo, Sam and Jess and the unbelievable adoration they had for each other, Bess and Garth’s genuine good-heartedness. He missed Dean and the green of his eyes, the freckles on his nose, how sometimes only one side of his bow lips curved upward in a smile.

    “Cas.”

    His head jerked up and he looked around at everyone, all eyes on him. “Yes?”

    “We’ve been speaking to you,” Lauren said. “Are your ears on?”

    “I’m sorry, I was just thinking. What did you say?”

    “I suggested strawberry picking for tomorrow,” Hannah supplied. “Just for something different.”

    “And I thought that the idea was absolutely lovely,” Cas’ mother chimed in.

    “Or we could race go-karts,” Ishim suggested.

    Hannah frowned. “Ishim.”

    “Hannah.”

    “Ishim, knock it off,” Jeffrey interrupted, before an argument could begin.

    Ishim glared at Hannah. “She’s had Cas basically all to herself this past couple weeks; can’t I have a day with my little brother?”

    “Ishim, we _have_ spent time together,” Cas said in a lame attempt to soothe the situation.

    Like he hadn’t heard Cas, Ishim pushed back from the table and snapped, “It’s just like it was before,” and stalked out of the room. Lauren called his name and got no answer. Cas didn’t move.

    “Hannah, perhaps you should speak to him,” Lauren said quietly.

    “Why?” Cas demanded, his voice angrier than he expected it to sound. But he didn’t back down. His parents and girlfriend looked at him, surprised. “Why should Hannah be the one to talk to Ishim? Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?”

    “Castiel, it has nothing to do with you—”

    “Do _not_ lie to me,” Cas growled. “Ishim, get back in here.” After a heavy silence, Ishim inched back into the dining room. “Tell me what’s been going on here or I swear, I will walk out of this house.”

    Lauren and Jeffrey glanced at one another, helpless, and Hannah’s face was red. “Cas…”

    “I heard you,” he said. “I heard you and Ishim the other night when you were fighting. You said you didn’t want to tell me something that the accident had made me forget.” Cas looked around at them all. “Is it the reason I left the first time?”

    “Cas,” Ishim said, suddenly looking much older and much more tired. “We…”

    “You left because you found out about something that we didn’t have the courage to admit to you,” Hannah interjected. “Our hope was that this could be a do-over, now that…”

    “Now that I don’t have my memories?” Disgusted, Cas took a step back from the table. “You were okay with taking advantage of my condition for your own personal peace of mind?”

    “Dear, it sounds worse than it is—”

    “No, Mother, it sounds precisely as bad as it is,” Cas bit off. “You used my memory loss to start over with me, instead of being honest and trusting that I would forgive whatever it is that you’ve done. What is it, then? What’s so horrible that you couldn’t tell me, so bad that Hannah and Ishim have been at each other’s throats about it so long?”

    “Hannah and I had an affair,” Ishim said, blunt. A choked sound escaped from Hannah’s mouth, and she covered it with her hand. “When you were in your second year at Newman.”

    “You…” Cas looked at Hannah. “You slept with my brother?”

    “It was a _mistake_.”

    “None of us knew how to tell you,” Jeffrey said. “We thought it would be better if, considering the circumstances, we all forgot about it and moved on.”

    “What circumstances?” Cas said. He felt nauseous. He and Hannah hadn’t even had sex, not once, because they’d been waiting until— “Maybe that I was going to marry Hannah?” He looked at Ishim. “And you just thought it would be okay to have a go at her?”

    “We were drunk, you were gone—”

    “ _Bite me_ ,” Cas yelled at Ishim. He wasn’t sure where it came from, since he’d never before said those words in that order, but he was too angry to focus on it. “Fuck you, Ishim. I can’t—I can’t believe the people meant to be my family would do this to me.”

    “Cas, please,” Hannah tried, desperate.

    “I can see why I left and never came back.” With nowhere to go, Cas stormed out of the dining room and up to his childhood bedroom, where he locked the door and tried to fight off the impending inability to catch his breath in a panic attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! :) Hope you're all well! Drop a comment below if you notice a mistake or whatnot, or come say hi on tumblr where I'm @cyanicas! As usual, I don't own anything except my own writing and ideas therein. I'll see you guys in a couple days for the next update! :)


	9. Part Three, Chapter One

     Four hours later, when Cas could breathe normally again, he went back downstairs. Hannah had left, as had Ishim. The only remaining members of his family were his parents, and they looked beat. Lauren looked up when Cas walked into the room, her eyes hopeful.

    He didn’t let her speak. “I want to go to Italy.”

    “I beg your pardon?” Jeffrey asked. Then beg, Cas wanted to snap. He didn’t, of course, not when he needed money.

    “I want to visit our cousins in Como,” Cas said. “I will visit the travel agent tomorrow, and I will leave in two days and be there for however long I wish to be, and when I come back I might stay here with you, or…” Cas inhaled, hands pressed to the tabletop. “What you’ve all done to me, for a second time, is unforgivable. It isn’t the betrayal so much as it is the constant dishonesty, as though you learned nothing the first time—” Getting worked up again, he took another beat.

    “A family is meant to be open and real,” he went on, his voice shaking, “but all anyone is here is fake. I need to leave. I need to find what  _ I _ want.”

    Lauren wiped at a tear in her eye and nodded. “If that’s what will make you happy, darling.”

    “It is.”

* * *

 

    Traveling for the second time in a month, Cas left Nebraska and landed in Milan around six on Friday night. His great-aunt drove to the airport to get him, and they were in Como a little before eight. Cas hadn’t seen this side of his family, his mother’s Italian side, since he was young, and since none of his relatives spoke fluent English, he was grateful that he had studied Italian in school so that he could have actual conversations with them.

    He was met with warm embraces and excited shouts, and he realized that he felt more at-home in his great-aunt Elissa’s relatively modest house than he had back in Kearney. He’d grown so used to the feeling of suffocation there that he hadn’t realized he could have anything else. His first escape had been Newman, for a little while Lawrence, and now Como.

    He spent the night describing his life in the States, as no one here had ever visited, and tried his best to remember everyone’s names. There was Elissa, her children Sofia and Niccoló (Nico); Elissa’s brother Osmano and his children, Bruno and Sara. Over the next few days, Cas met more people than he could remember and each one was kinder than the last.

    Even the older men and women stayed up past midnight, always with the food presented on the table like a feast, and the laughter and chatter flowed like the wine Cas’ uncle produced in his own house. It was like a dream world, and Cas didn’t want to leave. It was so different from his early life in Kearney when he’d always been on the move and working so hard to please everyone. Here, no one expected anything and lived in the moment. Every gathering was a party, a reunion, every second cherished.

    Cas lay in bed one night, reading after a long day. (‘Long days’ in Como, of course, translated to sitting around a relative’s dining table, drinking and eating.) He was on the final pages, tears in his eyes.

_ Spencer is gone. The baby brother Dustin had worked so tirelessly to raise as his own, to protect with his own life more than once, is gone. And Dustin can’t do a thing about it. He wants to, desperately, even if it means making another deal, but he’d made a promise. _

_     So he mourns. He adjusts. _

_     It is a strange new world, indeed, in which Lev is human and Dean no longer has a brother. He tries not to think about it, that maybe if Chuck hadn’t brought Lev back, the angel would’ve found a way on his own to return with his wings intact… and a way to save Spencer. But Dustin knows that if he does let himself consider those alternate realities, he will lose himself in them. _

_     So he goes on hunting. He has to. _

_     With Levanael by his side, Dustin knows that he can survive in this world, even if he doesn’t have Spencer. He and Lev cling to each other more than ever before, and after some years and more than a few good memories, they haven’t just had to survive. They’ve lived. _

_     No doubt, endings are hard. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. There’s always going to be holes. And since it’s the ending, it’s all supposed to add up to something. _

_     If you take anything out of this, I would suggest it be the lesson of free will. Choosing the things that deserve to be chosen. Up against good, evil, angels, devils, destiny, and God himself, the brothers made their own choice. They chose family. And, well, isn’t that kind of the whole point? _

At the bottom of the page, Dean had written, _As Dustin chose Lev, I’ll always choose Cas. (Glad Sam’s alive though! Wow.)_ _xx_.

_ I’ll always choose you, and our family _ , Cas had replied.  _ (Also, I too just realized how grateful I am that Sam isn’t burning in Hell. Yikes.) xoxo infinitely _

__ Cas laughed to himself, reading the comments, but he was crying as well, and wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the fact that the pages of these books were riddled with moments between himself and Dean, maybe it was that the healthiest relationships in his life were ones that Cas couldn’t remember having. The family he promised to always choose was across the ocean, and he wasn’t certain if he fit there any longer.

* * *

 

    The front door was open when Cas arrived back to his Kearney residence. He knew that everyone would be there in the awareness that today was the day he would be returning, and on the drive back he had sort of expected to feel terribly nervous upon re-entering his childhood home. But he didn’t. He felt calm as he walked into the kitchen, his family gathered there. He hadn’t allowed them to get him from the airport this time.

    “Castiel,” Lauren said, and he let her hug him. She smelled like the perfume she’d been wearing since he was little, and his chest tightened. “How are you?”

    “I’m well,” he answered. “The family in Como sends their love to you all.” His parents, his brother and Hannah, all waited for Cas to go on. Clearly, they knew what they wanted him to say. “I thought quite a bit while I was in Italy. It occurred to me that as mad as I was because of what happened…” Cas knew what he needed to say, so he kept going. “I realized that when it first happened, in 1995, I allowed it to become a wedge between us until early this month.

    “For a decade I did not truly talk to you, see you, or think of you as my family. I may not remember it, but we lost ten years together because I refused to forgive what you had done.”

    Cas took a  breath in, steadier than he’d have expected. “I want to say that I forgive you.” Hannah was frozen still when Cas looked at her. “I can’t be with you, Hannah. Everything is too jumbled now. And Ishim, I probably won’t ever understand why you did what you did, but you’re my brother, in the end, and I love you.

    “Mother, Father, you kept the secret to keep the stain off our family’s name.” Lauren and Jeffrey stayed quiet. “But I know that you did it also to protect my feelings. I forgive you.” Jeffrey hugged his son, then, and Cas couldn’t recall the last time he had received a hug from his father.

    “Despite that,” Cas went on, afterward, “I can’t stay here with you. My life is elsewhere, I think. But unlike the last time, my leaving isn’t a nail in the coffin. Not if you don’t want it to be.”

    “Not another decade of radio silence?” Ishim asked.

    “No,” Cas confirmed. “Life is too short for that. You never know what can happen, and I don’t want to waste any more time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually visited family in Italy over the summer, and my descriptions here are all true to what it was like with them. It's such a different lifestyle, since they live in a little town, where literally the main activity is just sitting with each other all day and laughing and talking about random things. It was so healing to be honest lol SO I wanted Cas to experience that :)) Unlike him, though, I can't speak Italian RIP I hope this little update was good for you guys! Thanks for all the support!!


	10. Part Three, Chapter Two

     It was three days into July when Cas rolled his suitcase up to Dean’s front door and knocked. After a few seconds, Cas felt incredibly foolish: it was a Sunday, which meant Dean would be working and wouldn’t be home for hours yet. Cas bent down and retrieved the key from beneath the potted plant, putting it back once the door had swung open. Almost immediately, Balthazar came bounding toward his knees. Cas opened his arms with a grin and gave the dog a hug.

    “I missed you, too, buddy,” he said, rubbing his ears fondly. “I missed you, too.” Cas breathed in the familiar air. He took it upon himself to give Bal a treat, wash the couple dishes on the counter, and scrub the tabletop. He was restless, anticipation rendering him unable to sit still. Cas jogged around the block (twice) with Bal. He took an extra long shower to burn through an hour. He emptied the food from the fridge that was starting to spoil. He returned the books to Dean’s room. (He still felt a little guilty that he’d taken them without asking…)

    Finally, when the clock began to tick closer to six, Cas ordered a meat lover’s pizza and waited some more. He was beyond nervous. What if Dean was furious at him for showing up here unannounced? What if he hated him? Cas would understand, after everything. He would understand but, selfishly, he knew he would be devastated if Dean turned him away now.

    When he heard the garage door go up, his heartbeat quickened and he could feel it pounding from within his chest, threatening to rip right out from its cage into the open air. He wiped his suddenly sweating palms onto the thighs of his jeans.

    Cas didn’t want Dean to hate him. Honestly, if Dean hated him, Cas was pretty sure he would lose his mind. For the ever-patient Dean to hate you, you really had to have done something bad. Needless to say, he was terrified.

    The door to the garage opened, and Dean walked into the hallway nearest the kitchen, head down as he pushed off his boots. When his eyes lifted and found Cas, he blinked as though perhaps he were hallucinating. He barely paid any attention to Bal’s jumping at his feet. He wore a simple dark-grey Henley, his jaw dusted with more stubble than Cas remembered. He looked perfect, of course.

    “Hello,” he said.

    “Cas, what…?” Dean said, tentative.

    “I know I shouldn’t have shown up here like this, out of the blue,” Cas said quickly. “After I put you through so much. But I’ve done a lot of thinking these past few weeks. I… I went to Italy—”

    “ _ Italy _ ?”

    “It’s a long story. I can explain all of it to you, if you’ll let me.” Cas gestured at the pizza box waiting on the table. “I got dinner.”

    “Did you think pizza would convince me to let you stay?”

    “Maybe a few points in my favor, yeah.” Dean nodded slowly. He dropped gingerly into a chair and Cas hurried to do the same. “I’m not living in Kearney anymore.”

    “Why’s that?”

    “The reason I had left in 1995 came back around,” Cas said. “My brother and Hannah had an affair back then, and lied about it.”

    Dean actually looked taken aback, and he whistled, low. “I can see why you never told me.”

    “I regret not telling you. I should have, when I had my memories. Maybe then you could have reminded me why it is I left Nebraska in the first place,” Cas said, “instead of having to watch me leave you for people that I… that I shouldn’t have left you for.”

    Dean swallowed, processing. “Maybe. But can’t change what’s past.” His gaze searched Cas’ face before pulling away. “I take it you’re back here cuz you found what you needed to find?”

    “Yes,” Cas said, and there was no sign of trepidation when he did so. “I want to start over with you. Not knowing the truth kept me from doing so from the beginning, but now I know that what I want is to be here with you and Bal, to be here with everyone.” Dean didn’t speak, and Cas felt something in him twist painfully. “Of course, I can’t imagine the grief I’ve put you through.” Cas looked at his hands. “If I were you, I would be hesitant to even trust me again, let alone...” He took a breath. “I understand if you don’t want to be with me. It was selfish to come back and expect you—”

    “‘In sickness and in health,’ right?”

    “What?”

    “I promised to be there for you through the good times and the bad times, Cas.” Dean shrugged his shoulders, like that was the end of it. “I love you. I always have. If you wanna give this a go, I’m all in. Same as ever.”

    It seemed too good to be true. Cas almost didn’t know what to say. “After… after everything that’s happened to me...” Cas tried to think. “With my parents, and the accident, losing my memories of us, it’s like I’m—I was beginning to feel like I was cursed.”

    Dean lifted a hand, like  _ What can you do? _ “Well,” he said, “I’d rather have you over anyone else, cursed or not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	11. Part Three, Chapter Three and a Half

     He had been the one to approach Castiel, so he thought it only fair to allow Cas to pick the restaurant. They would be meeting in Wichita, because not only did Cas live there but it was far more logical to drive an hour from Hutchinson and keep heading on afterward for home than it did to drive all the way back to Lawrence right away, Cas in tow; he’d have to turn back around for Wichita to complete what would end up being a four-hour road-trip for a single date. Dean was sure this was a better thought-out plan than that alternative.

    The restaurant was a favorite of Castiel’s and he knew happy hour to end at seven; they set a reservation for half-past five to be safe. Dean had been on plenty of ‘dates,’ sort of—from his few and far between nights spent turning tricks to a one-time hookup, at age 19 Dean had seen it all. At least, he liked to think so. But something about this Castiel made him doubt that confidence, and usually he’d run for it. Not this time.

    He dressed well, fortunate that some part of his brain had told him to be prepared for anything. He regretted putting on the outfit before arriving in Wichita, since it would be an hour trip and he felt suffocated. Aware that he didn’t have the time to waste in changing into a flannel at a rest-stop, Dean decided to stop being a pansy and suck it up. He looked good, he smelled even better, and he would make it to Wichita in one piece. If it meant seeing Castiel’s smile again, Dean would be there. Scared him a little, how sure he was of that after having met the guy last night in the dark at a Rush concert. Jesus Christ.

    Dean blasted Zepp and tried his very best to ignore his worries, of which included but were not limited to: What if this is crazy? And the guy lives in Wichita, which isn’t all that close to Lawrence, so does that mean I’m already thinking this is more than a one-time deal? I must be, if I’m driving an hour from Hutchinson instead of heading home! We would’ve hooked up last night if I didn’t care—

    Baby pulled into Two Olives on the dot, Dean popped a mint, and he walked into the joint with his nerves in a tizzy. This wasn’t a normal feeling for Dean, not in the least. He didn’t do actual, let’s-go-to-a-restaurant-for-conversation dates. That wasn’t Dean, never had been, though he liked to think of himself as somewhat of a romantic at times. He loved connecting with people, but that usually entailed sex, not telling strangers about his family’s insanity or the fact that he never went to college. He was about to sit down with a man, one of the many, who had ordered drinks from Dean the probably-at-least-21 year-old, and Castiel was going to freak out and run like a dog with his tail between his legs when he found out Dean wasn’t actually in his twenties, let alone someone with a stable career outside of tending bar and an invalid ID. Fuck. What had he been thinking? Shit. An hour-long drive hadn’t been enough time to think this through? Fuck.

    He ordered drinks at the bar, the same Cas had ordered from him the night before because that was the only thing Dean was sure he could do right tonight, and he spotted the dark head of hair on the far side of the restaurant. The windows were huge and allowed for setting sunlight to pour inside beautifully, it showered Cas in a warm glow. He’d chosen a table beside them, and Dean wandered over with glasses in hand.

    Castiel’s attention moved from the outdoors to the young man to his right, and a smile broke across his lips. Perfect lips, Dean was unsurprised to notice again.

    “Dean,” Castiel said in that deep voice. He stood and, with a hand on Dean’s arm, actually placed a sweet peck against his cheek. Dean wished he hadn’t shaved; maybe it could’ve hidden this fucking blush. He was such a pussy. “You got my drink,” Cas noted in appreciation, once they’d seated.

    “I did. Sometimes I think my memory is my best feature,” Dean said, mostly joking.

    “That can’t be true,” Cas disagreed with a smile. Dean thought also that some scruff could’ve made him look older, as it did with Cas, who just could not have been any more beautiful. Dean wanted to die right about now.

    “So, you live here?” Dean asked, forcibly dropping his eyes to the menu.

    “I do. And how is Lawrence?”

    “It’s Kansas. What can I say?” Dean shrugged slightly. “Where my family is.”

    “You’re close, then?”

    And here they hit territory Dean preferred not to traverse. “Me and my brother, sure. Can’t complain there. What about you? Got any siblings?”

    Castiel looked down and sideways. “Well, just the one. We aren’t close.”

    Dean knew what it was like to dislike discussion of family, so he didn’t press the topic. “It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, don’t worry.” When he looked again at Cas, he saw that he was motioning to the waitress. “Oh, I’m not ready to…”

    But Cas was taking his menu right out of his hand, and that twinkle was back in his eyes. “We’ll take the three least ordered items on the menu, please,” he told the waitress.

    Dean’s eyes blew wide and he stared at the man across from him. “Are you insane?”

    “No, I’m quite sane.” Cas smiled. “But then, 94 percent of psychotics think  _ they’re _ perfectly sane so I suppose we have to ask ourselves: what is sane?”

    “So, you’re definitely nuts,” Dean deduced.

    “I blame nurture over nature.”

    “Can’t say we don’t agree there,” Dean muttered, thinking briefly of his father.

    And he had to admit, Cas ordering three random things had made him like Cas just a little bit more (not that he’d ever admit that  _ aloud _ ).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	12. Conclusion

****     Dean didn’t know who he had to thank for fulfilling his prayers but whoever it was, he owed them a serious tip. Cas’ memories returned slowly. Agonizingly slowly, in fact. He got through it with the knowledge that soon he would be himself again, even if he would never be exactly who he had been. He knew that he’d take any version of Cas over none at all, anyway.

    Cas and Dean spent the months leading to the wedding in attempts to make up for the two they’d lost, Cas’ 32 nd birthday raging until well past a reasonable hour. Unlike years past, they had invited his Kearney family, and to everyone’s surprise the Novaks actually showed up. The night was far from stress-free, but there, holding Dean’s hand and seeing genuine smiles on his parents’ faces, Cas was certain without a doubt that it was the best birthday yet.

    October brought fallen leaves and high hopes for Sam and Jess’ nuptials. At the chapel, Cas sat right in the front row, Dean beside Sam at the altar. He and Jess were married by Chuck Shurley, the miracle worker, of course. He was impressively sardonic, a screaming pansexual, and one of the most unaffected people Cas had ever met. He was glad that he remembered him.

    Warmth surrounding them all like a blanket, Dean glanced over to Cas when his brother and new sister-in-law kissed, and they shared a smile as cheers filled the church. Cas wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this story. It's my first ever published for DeanCas, so it means the world to see so many of you liked it enough to keep reading as I updated. You're all the best! <3


	13. Division of the "Supernatural books"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Here's how I imagined each book in the Supernatural series was done by chapter, each as an episode from the show. I know in the show they said the books were literally per episode, but there'd be way too many if that were the case lol So here's my take, and I wanted to show you so you can get a better idea of what Cas was reading :)

Book 1: _Supernatural_ – Dustin finds Spencer so that they can get on the road to find John. Episodes from season one as chapters/sections include:

  * _Pilot_ (1)
  * _Wendigo_ (2)
  * _Skin_ (6)
  * _Home_ (9)
  * _Scarecrow_ (11)
  * _Shadow_ (16)
  * _Dead Man’s Blood_ (20)
  * _Salvation_ (21)
  * _Devil’s Trap_ (22, finale)



 

Book 2: _Born Under a Bad Sign_ – Episodes from season two as chapters/sections include:

  * _In My Time of Dying_ (1)
  * _Everybody Loves a Clown_ (2)
  * _Simon Said_ (3)
  * _Crossroad Blues_ (8)
  * _Croatoan_ (9)
  * _Hunted_ (10)
  * _Houses of the Holy_ (13)
  * _Born Under a Bad Sign_ (14)
  * _What Is and What Should Never Be_ (20)
  * _All Hell Breaks Loose_ (Part 1) (21)



 

Book 3: _No Rest for the Wicked_ – Episodes from season three as chapters/sections include:

  * __All Hell Breaks Loose (Part 2)_ (22)_


  * _The Magnificent Seven_ (1)


  * _Sin City_ (4)


  * _Bedtime Stories_ (5)


  * _Red Sky at Morning_ (6)


  * _Malleus Maleficarum_ (9)


  * _Dream a Little Dream of Me_ (10)


  * _Time is On My Side_ (15)


  * _No Rest for the Wicked_ (16, finale)



 

Book 4: _When the Levee Breaks_ – Episodes from season four as chapters/sections include:

  * _Lazarus Rising_ (1)
  * _Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester_ (2) and edited in the book to be called _Are You There, God? It's Me, Dustin…_ because Chuck never includes their last name in the books
  * _In the Beginning_ (3)
  * _It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester_ (7) and edited to be _It’s the Great Pumpkin, Spencer_ because Chuck never includes their last name in the books
  * _I Know What You Did Last Summer_ (9)
  * _Heaven and Hell_ (10)
  * _After School Special_ (13)
  * _Sex & Violence_ (14)
  * _On the Head of a Pin_ (16)
  * _The Monster at the End of This Book_ (18)
  * _Jump the Shark_ (19)
  * _The Rapture_ (20)
  * _When the Levee Breaks_ (21)
  * _Lucifer Rising_ (22, finale)



 

Book 5: _Swan Song_ – Episodes from season five as chapters/sections include

  * _Sympathy for the Devil_ (1)
  * _Good God, Y'All!_ (2)
  * _Free to Be You and Me_ (3)
  * _The End_ (4) but it’s the version in which EndVerse Dean and Cas are actually in a relationship, and Cas’ [changed lines](https://cyanicas.tumblr.com/post/162416235174/504-futuredean-and-cas-are-lovers-and-the-whole) in the car are not changed. Dean does not tell Cas about what he saw.
  * _The Real Ghostbusters_ (9)
  * _Abandon All Hope…_ (10)
  * _Sam, Interrupted_ (11)
  * _The Song Remains the Same_ (13)
  * _Dark Side of the Moon_ (16)
  * _Point of No Return_ (18)
  * _The Devil You Know_ (20)
  * _Two Minutes to Midnight_ (21)
  * _Swan Song_ (22, finale)




	14. Narrations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I made narrations of other scenes from the show so I figured I should post them. They're basically word for word, so obviously I don't own them or take credit for them in that regard, but it was so fun to write them out that I wanted to share with you guys since I couldn't put them all in the story :) They're also edited to be more Destiel-esque haha so enjoy that!

**Scene Cas reads from book 4: _When the Levee Breaks_ , chapter _Heaven and Hell_**

    Spencer paces the floor of the barn. Dustin can feel the tension from where he sits, flask in hand.

    “I don’t know, man,” Spencer says, eyes trained on the street outside. “Where’s Isabelle?”

    “Hey, _you’re_ the one who’s so buddy-buddy with her,” Dustin reminds him. He ignores the look of indignation his brother casts his way and looks instead to Lailah. She is watching him with an amused gleam in her eyes.

    “A little early for that, isn’t it?” she questions. Dean glances at his flask with a shrug.

    “It’s two a.m. somewhere,” he replies.

    She doesn’t smile, and he thinks again of Lev, wherever the hell he may be. It kills Dustin to admit it, but he sees him in Lailah. The intense, unrelenting gaze, how it always seemed to see through Dean. He wishes to God he could stop. But, of course, that line of action— _wishing_ —would get him nowhere, as it always had.

    “Are you okay?” the former-angel asks Dustin.

    “Of course,” he says, because what else could he possibly say? She isn’t given the chance to press him, though she looks like she will, because the doors are blown open in a gust reminiscent of that night so long ago. Just as he had then, Levanael strides into the barn, but this time his purposeful march is matched by that of another angel by his side.

    Spencer, Lailah, and Dustin form a row as God’s warriors stand before them, glowering. Lev gives a greeting to Lailah that does not quite reach his eyes, and she remains silent, breathing hard, as Spencer demands, “How? How did you find us?”

    Levanael’s focus come to rest on Dustin; his brother’s and Lailah’s are quick to do the same. As Dustin looks away, Lev allows his gaze to drop.

    “I’m sorry,” Dustin manages to say, the constriction of his throat making his voice break. Lailah stares at him.

    “Dustin?” It is clear that Spencer can’t believe the turn of events, doesn’t want to. _“Why_?”

    “Because they gave him a choice,” Lailah tells him, simple and firm. She looks back to Dustin, then the angels. “Either they kill me, or they kill you.” Unwilling to accept that Levanael would agree to take part in this, Spencer turns to the angel. Lev cannot meet his eyes, and Spencer knows then that Lailah is right.

    She faces Dustin, a hand settled gently against his arm, and leans up to press a kiss to his lips. Lev watches this with a glare he isn’t aware he is holding, hears her murmur to Dustin, “You did the best you could” in forgiveness, and it is then that Lev forces himself to study the ground rather than the sadness in Dustin’s eyes.

* * *

**Scene from book 5: _Swan Song_ ; chapter _Free to Be You and Me_**

    Dustin hates vampires. Those sons of bitches bleed far too much for his sanity—and far too much to keep his laundry load down to once a week. He works at the red stains a recent hunt left in his jacket, dabbing at it softly until the sound of rustling forces him to glance up. In the mirror stands Levanael, and he nearly bites his tongue off in surprise.

   “Jesus!” Dustin snaps. “Don’t—don’t _do_ that!”

   “Hello, Dustin.”

   “Yeah, hi.” Dustin turns to face him and is struck by how close they are to one another. The angel has no boundaries—the inches between them may as well be three feet, what with the way his eyes focus on Dustin’s face so unwaveringly, intent on whatever they see there. “Uh, Lev. We talked about this, yeah? Personal space.” He swallows for the second time, barely holding it together.

    Lev doesn’t move, looking Dustin’s face over once before he says, “My apologies,” without sounding all that sorry at all. He takes a generous step backward and allows Dustin to pass him.

    “So, how did you find me, anyway?” Dustin asks, stuffing his jacket into his duffel on the bed. “Thought I was flying under the angels’ radar.”

    “You are, but Russell told me where you were. Where is your brother?”

    “Spencer’s…” Dustin pulls a flannel over his shoulders. “Let’s just say, we’re taking separate vacations for a little while.” He looks to Lev. “How’s your God-hunt goin’?”

    “I haven’t found Him,” Levanael tells Dustin. “I need your help in the matter; that’s why I’m here.”

    Dustin scoffs. “I already gave you my charm—which I’d like back at some point, by the way.”

    Lev pays this no mind. “I need you to help me find someone who, in turn, will lead me to my father.”

    “Who?” Dustin asks, grudgingly.

    “An archangel, the one who killed me. Raphael.”

    Dustin’s eyebrows lift. “Excuse me? You were wasted by a Teenage Mutant Ninja Angel?”

    Unfamiliar with the reference, Lev only goes on, “This is a rare opportunity—”

    “For what, exactly?” Dustin questions. “Revenge?”

    “Information,” Lev retorts. “I’ve heard whispers that he’s walking the earth.”

    Dustin can’t help but laugh. “That’s all you got? ‘Whispers’? Enough to make you so sure this _Raphael_ will just spill God’s address when you come knocking?”

    Lev watches Dustin head back to the sink, a blade to clean in hand. “Yes. Because we are going to trap and interrogate him.”

    “You’re serious,” Dustin says, and it isn’t a question. He steps toward Levanael, the hint of a smile playing at his mouth. “So, what? I’m Thelma, you’re Louise, and we’re just going to… hold hands and sail off this cliff together?” Dustin can see that the angel is lost to yet another reference; he sighs and walks around him, finding a pocket to fit the knife.

    “Give me one good reason why I should do this,” he says.

    “Because you are Michael’s vessel,” Lev informs him, as though it’s obvious, “and no angel would dare harm you.”

    “So I’m your human shield?” Dustin deadpans.

    “More or less.” Dustin makes a sound of disbelief and Lev moves a step closer until they are, for the second instance in a short period of time, mere inches apart. “I need _your_ help, because you are the only one who will help me.” Dustin fights to keep his eyes on Lev’s, and fails for the half second when they fall to the angel’s mouth. “Please. I do not ask this lightly.”

* * *

**Scene from book 5: _Swan Song_ ; chapter _Free to Be You and Me_**

    Dustin has just set his father’s journal onto the table and decided to make a sandwich when Levanael appears before him in the blink of an eye, as he is wont to do.

    “Where’ve you been?” Dustin asks, shoving rough nonchalance into his voice.

    “Jerusalem.”

    Dustin almost laughs at the angel’s unconcerned tone. “Oh, great. And how was it, pray tell?”

    “Arid.” He sets an antique jug onto the table beside Jacob’s journal and Dustin wrinkles his nose.

    “What the hell’s that?”

    “Oil,” Levanael tells him. “Very special, very rare, and possibly the only thing that will be able to keep Raphael ensnared.”

    Dustin nods slowly. “I see. So, your ingenious plan is to keep an archangel locked up with a nice vinaigrette.” Lev shoots him a withering glance. “Okay, chill. When’s this goin’ down, anyway?”

    “Sunrise.”

    “And, be honest here: do we stand a snowball’s chance of surviving this?”

    “ _You_ do,” Lev says. Dustin’s eyebrows come together. If anything, he’d expected Lev to admit that it didn’t matter one bit about Dustin’s being Michael’s vessel—They’d go down swinging, side by side. But he’d never thought that he’d be the only one walking out from this fight. Or that the idea would hurt.

    “So, odds are, tomorrow you’re a dead man?”

    “Yes,” Lev says simply. He does not seem at all remorseful. Instead, Levanael is the very picture of calm, cool, and collected. Dustin doesn’t know what to do.

    “Wow, uh… Last night on earth,” he hears himself say. “Any big plans I should know about?” Had he really just used a line on Lev?

    “I thought I would sit here quietly,” Lev tells him. Dustin can’t be sure if he’s joking or not, but when taken into account the fact that Lev has made maybe the one odd joke in all the time he’s known him, Dean’s going to go with _or not_.

    “Come on,” he prods. “You can’t just ‘sit here.’ No plan, really?”

    “I don’t know, Dustin,” Lev says exasperatedly. “What would you suggest?”

    “I don’t know.” He leans against the table, standing over Levanael. “Booze. Women.” He clears his throat at the look on the angel’s face. “The works.” Lev looks down. “You… you _have_ been with a woman before, haven’t you? An angel, at least?” A little more general, since angels are without gender. Dean hoped this would get Lev to open up, but all his friend snaps in reply is, “I’ve never had occasion, okay?”

    “Alright.” Dustin pushes off the table. “There are two things I know for certain in this hellhole of a world: one, Bert and Ernie are gay.” He pops the collar of the jacket he’s just yanked on. “And two: you are _not_ going to die a virgin. Not on my watch. Let’s go.”

     Dustin’s first thought hadn’t been ‘strip club,’ despite whatever his brother might say about his limited hobbies. It’s just that in the time it took Dustin to get up the nerve to say _There are two things…_ he realized that there was no way in God’s green Heaven or the Devil’s bloody Hell that Lev would ever, ever want to lose it to, of all the humans around, _Dustin_. That thought had been in illogical little bitch nagging at him for no good reason, the voice that said _He won’t know the difference, you idiot! He’ll be dead by noon!_

But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t admit that he _wanted_ to do that. So, Dustin drove them to the strip club, and he watched Lev flunk out so hilariously with Temperance, a mix of amusement and relief flooding into a laugh that he couldn’t control.

    “What the hell’d you say to her, anyway?” he asks Lev, once they’ve made it safely back to the Impala.

    “I simply told her that it wasn’t her fault that her father left when she was a child,” Lev replies. “It was because he hated his job at the post office.” Dustin adjusts the askew lapel to Levanael’s trench-coat, his eyes finding the angel’s in the dark. His words sink in, and that’s when Dustin laughs. Really _laughs_.

    “What’s so funny?” Levanael enquires, his eyebrows drawn, and Dustin slips an arm around his shoulders.

    “Honestly… I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.” He glances at Lev, smiling softly as he catches his breath. Lev is smiling as well, if only because the sight of Dustin with something other than a scowl on his pretty face is a welcome turn. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed that hard.” He glances up to the sky, where the moon is shining, and then back to Lev. His eyes are bright, and Dustin feels all at once lonely, and content.

    “It’s been more than a long time,” he realizes. “Years.”

    “I’m glad to be of service,” Lev tells him, and he means it.


	15. My Outline!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's the journey! This was edited up until I started posting and I haven't changed anything so there's probably discrepancies. I just wanted to let y'all in to the timeline. Take what you will from this lol

It is May 21 th , 2005 on the Saturday Cas leaves

Dean gets the call Sunday 22 late afternoon because accident happened in the morning.

Wake Cas from coma the 25 th , Wednesday

He and Dean drive home 28 th Saturday morning because they keep Cas for observation Thursday and Friday

Tuesday 31 st , per Cas’ request, they go out to lunch with Sam/Jess, Charlie, and Kevin.

Early Wednesday April 1 st morning, Dean reads to Cas from book one of  _ Supernatural _ . 

 

Cas is 30 (Will be 31 on August 20 2005)

Dean is 26 (as of January 24 2005)

Sam is 22 (as of May 2 2005)

Jess is 21 (as of January 24 2005)

 

Castiel Novak

  * Born: August 20, 1974
  * Was raised in Kearney, Nebraska by his parents (Jeffrey and Lauren) with older brother (by three years) Ishim
  * He finds out from Ishim that his longtime girlfriend Hannah had an affair with Ishim while Cas was away for his second year at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. Afterward, he decides to leave Kearney and his poisonous family to live in Wichita because he likes it so much. He moves to Wichita to attend Newman for his two years (first year, he turned 19. Beginning of fourth, he turned 22) so he completes school there and stays
  * His parents were never fans of his being pansexual and were even angrier when he broke up with Hannah, who they liked and hoped he would marry
  * Cas always worked growing up, despite not needing to, so he took all the money he saved (parents paid for college in full, so he has all that he saved) and is able to move out of Kearney on his own
  * He meets Dean in 1997 (Cas will be 23) on July 17 at a Rush concert (Test for Echo tour, which actually ended July 4 but for this story, was longer) that his friend from school, Benjamin, invited him to attend in Hutchinson, Kansas (about an hour to get there from Wichita).
  * Gay marriage is not legal so he can’t legitimately marry Dean. No license change, and they agree that they don’t need to officially change either of their names to prove their love so they leave his license as Castiel Novak. Unofficially, and really only by those they know well or introducing himself, he goes by Cas Winchester. But all official documents and things are labeled as Novak
  * Accident: he is registered as Castiel Novak, which is a fact that works against Dean when trying to convince Cas that they’re married.
  * Cas needs to meet the potential clients for breakfast on Sunday morning the 22nd but on the drive he gets in an accident. Cas is thrown through his windshield when he is hit from behind by a truck, but he lands on grass and should be fine. He is slightly conscious when brought in my EMTs but there is swelling of the brain so doctor puts him into medically induced coma for three days until he looks okay to wake up. But when he wakes up and is able to speak, the past decade has been erased from his mind. _Traumatic amnesia - memory loss caused by a hard blow to the head; for instance, a car accident. People with traumatic amnesia may experience a brief loss of consciousness, or even go into a coma. In the majority of cases, the amnesia is temporary - how long it lasts usually depends on how severe the injury is. Sports scientists say that amnesia is an important indicator of concussion._
  * His parents Jeffrey and Lauren (who he no longer speaks to) are informed when the nurses find Cas’ phone and see Mom in his contacts. They fly in from Kearney, Nebraska (not too long a flight) but they have never met Dean because of their estrangement with Cas.
  * Cas isn’t sure if he should believe Dean, since his parents met Dean the day before, and he vaguely remembers Dean but nothing solid about him, but the voicemails and pictures help Cas to believe Dean and he agrees to go back to Lawrence with Dean to jog his memory.
  * He doesn’t have a firm grip on why he left Nebraska in the first place, so when his parents mention Hannah Johnson, he wonders why he ever broke up with his longtime girlfriend.
  * Cas purposely didn’t invite his parents to the wedding or even tell them about Dean. Haven’t spoken legitimately in years.
  * Upset/overwhelmed because he’s in a house where so many memories have been made; he feels shitty because he can’t remember like Dean obviously can, and the way Dean looks at him with so much love and fear hurts. All the photos of them smiling with their apparent friends, and dog, living their fucking life.
  * “It’s different now, Dean. Everything feels different.”
  * “Dean, I feel like… I feel like I’ve woken up in someone else’s life.”
  * After hearing from Hannah on Tuesday 31st he books a flight on Wednesday 1st night for a flight on Thursday 2nd afternoon. → he goes to Kearney and hopes that staying with his family and seeing his old friends will help him, but he finds out about Ishim and Hannah again and realizes that must be the reason why he left Kearney those years ago.
  * Once he leaves Kearney again 23rd, Cas decides that everyone is garbage and leaves for a vacation to Como, a town in northern Italy in which he has family (mom’s side). They all only speak Italian; Cas speaks Italian btw lmao He is there until July 1st and returns to Kearney, where he forgives his family but says that he has somewhere else he needs to be.
  * Cas returns to Lawrence Sunday 3rd of July.
  * Dean is relieved and reminds Cas, tentatively, that July 17 is their wedding anniversary, and the anniversary of the day they met in 1997. [Cas agrees to go out with Dean for the night and try to have a good time, but Dean invites him to be his date to Sam’s wedding, which is months away, and Cas feels overwhelmed because like he doesn’t even have his memories, he feels like he isn’t even alive really, and Dean’s over here making plans so far in advance and it’s just too much. He leaves the next morning with a note on the fridge that explains he needs time. Shows up a couple days before Sam’s wedding? “Do you still need a date?” or “did you save a dance?”]
  * Finds Dean’s copies of the SPN books. He reads the fourth and fifth book between June 4—July 1 in Italy and is touched when he sees that Dean underlines scenes between the characters Dustin and Lev, the characters Dean told him Chuck based on Dean and Cas. He returns to Lawrence because he realizes that wants to really try with Dean even if that means having to start fresh in the middle of where they’d been.
  * Cas says something like this on the anniversary date: “after everything that’s happened to me, with my parents, and the accident, losing my memories of us, it’s like I’m—I feel like I’m cursed.” And dean replies with, “well, I’d rather have you, cursed or not.”
  * First time it was Ishim that told Cas about the affair, but this time it is Hannah who wants to come clean bc what if Cas does get his memories back and now knows that they lied to him over again and took advantage of him not having his memories. Ishim is mad because it was so fucked the first time bc they tried to be honest. They argue June Wednesday 15th and Cas overhears. He wonders what they are fighting about and when it doesn’t seem like they are going to tell him after two days, he asks June Friday 17th at a family dinner. Shit hits the fan AGAIN. Cas decides to leave June Tuesday 21st and asks his parents to please pay for him to go to Italy. They feel bad so they do. He stays in Como until Friday the 1st of July.



 

Departure June 23rd: from Kearney Regional Airport at 8:30 pm

 

Flight time: 15 hours and 50 minutes

 

Stops NOT layovers: 3 stops.

  1. Rhode Island after three hours and 15 minutes.
    1. Rhode Island is an hour ahead of Kearney.
    2. Cas arrives in Rhode Island at 11:45 pm Nebraska time
    3. At that time, it is 12:45 am in Rhode Island.
    4. They leave from R.I. at 1:45 am Rhode Island time.
  2. Madrid, Spain after 7 hours and 23 minutes.
    1. Spain is 6 hours ahead of Kearney.
    2. Cas arrives in Madrid, Spain at 8:08 am Nebraska time.
    3. At that time, it is 3:08 pm in Madrid, Spain.
    4. They leave at 4:00 pm Madrid time. 6pm Madrid time



 

Arrival: at Milan–Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy at 6:00 pm (no time difference between Madrid and Milan)

Cas goes to baggage claim and has it all sorted by 6:35. Cas is picked up by his Great-Aunt Elissa. The car ride from Milan to Como is a little more than an hour so Cas arrives to his family’s home at 7:45 pm June 24th.

  
  


Dean Winchester

  * Born: January 24, 1979
  * Age 26
  * Was raised in Lawrence, Kansas by his father and with younger brother (by four years) Sam. Mother Mary died in house-fire due to circuitry problems in October of 1983 (Dean was 3, Sam wasn’t even a year old.)
  * Always worked very hard to raise Sam and care for him, so used to working different jobs (and hustling pool) with fake IDs to make him legal; always seemed older than he is so it was fine but he is 26 and looks 20.
  * Met Cas at a Rush concert in Hutchinson (couple hours from Lawrence) July 17, 1997 where he was bar-tending for extra money. He was only 18 at the time, so he wasn’t legal, but had fake ID and honestly the company didn’t care.
  * Did not attend any sort of college; worked so hard to make sure that Sam would have more opportunities than Dean did.
  * He and Cas date July 1997 through until April of 1998, when (despite being much younger) Dean proposes. Gay marriage is not legal in Kansas or pretty much anywhere in the U.S. at this point, regardless they wait until July 17 (the day they met that last year) and have a ceremony where they exchange rings. They move in together in Wichita, but go to Lawrence when Dean’s father John has a heart attack in June 2002 and then move there when John passes away from the heart attack in early July of 2002 and leaves his share of the garage to Dean in his will. He and his sons get the chance to talk through all their problems before he dies and relieves some of the hurt he’s caused throughout the years.
  * By 2005, Dean is co-owner of Henry’s (a bar, unrelated to his deceased grandfather Henry) and Guenther’s Auto Repair. He works at the bar generally only on Sundays, and W.A. during the week.
  * His best friend will always be Sam, but also Cas, and Charlie Bradbury
  * Sam’s wedding is coming up and Dean refuses to let them cancel it just because his life has gone to shit; assures them it’s fine to keep moving on with their life while he figures shit out with Cas. Even invites Cas as his date in the hopes that it could jog his memory
  * When they arrive home, their German Shepard, Balthazar, jumps on Cas in excitement and Cas doesn’t know what to do. Dean’s smile drops when he sees the confusion in Cas’ eyes. The adopted Bal when he was a puppy in 1999 because Dean is allergic to cats and this was their compromise. They named him Balthazar as a joke, because he was a tiny baby with an intimidating name. They just call him Bal. Cas says, “I’m more of a cat person.” And Dean doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
  * Dean is afraid that everyone coming over will overwhelm Cas more
  * “We got married in ’97. My best man was Sam, yours was Charlie.” “So, my best friend is a man named Charlie?” “Should’ve been more specific. More like maid of honor. Charlie’s a chick.”
  * Proposed to Cas on April 3 1998 using the ring Dean bought at a thrift shop in Arizona on a visit to the Grand Canyon when he was 12. It’s one of the very few trips John ever took the boys on, so it’s sentimental.
  * Dean has a copy of all five books in the _Supernatural_ series by his buddy Chuck Shurley, and all of them are scratched up and written in. He and Cas marked them all, especially Dean, who wrote between the lines and sometimes in a particularly true to life scene even changed the names of _Dustin_ and _Levanael_ to Dean and Cas, same with the other characters based on his friends.
  * “Look, I don’t need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I’ve failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don’t need it!”
  * First date with Cas was at Two Olives, a Mediterranean restaurant Cas loves in Wichita. Dean’s been staying in Hutchinson for the concert and extends his stay because makes more sense to drive an hour to Wichita over drive 3 back to Lawrence and then back to Wichita to see Cas the next day, July 18 Friday. [http://twooliveswichita.com/](http://twooliveswichita.com/)



 

Sam Winchester

  * Born: May 2, 1983
  * 22 years old
  * Was raised in Lawrence, Kansas, mostly by his brother. John wasn’t all that attentive and his mom Mary died when he was only a few months old.
  * Has always worked hard in school because Dean was so insistent that he have a future, and he wants to get out of Lawrence if he can. Wants to help people so is going to be a lawyer; he attends Stanford Law School where he met Jessica Moore. They are now engaged and to be married on October 12th, 2005
  * Sees Cas as another brother, so the accident is horrible for him too
  * Best friend is Dean, but also Kevin Tran, who he met when they were kids
  * He and Jess have gotten a golden retriever (with a more reddish coat) and have named him Gabriel ‘Gabe’
  * Was best man to Dean at Dean and Cas’ wedding ceremony in 1998, when Sam was 15 and Dean was 19



 

Kevin Tran

  * Born: December 2, 1986
  * Was raised in Neighbor, Michigan until he was 9 (soon to be 10 in December), at which time his father was mugged and killed. Afterward, Kevin moved to Lawrence, Kansas (1995) with his mother Linda. He’s a grade ahead so he meets Sam (at the time 13) in school for the new year. The become best friends from then on.
  * Vegan
  * Plays the cello
  * Was always an AP student
  * Attends Princeton University in New Jersey



 

Charlene ‘Charlie’ Bradbury

  * Born: June 28, 1985
  * Was raised in Chicago, Illinois, until she was 12 and her parents were killed by a drunk driver. Afterward, she had to endure an extreme change in lifestyle in her move to Lawrence, Kansas (1997) to live with her father’s sister, Abigail.
  * Basically a genius, can hack any database in minutes/seconds
  * She meets Sam in school but really hits it off with Dean. They become very close 
  * Dean calls her Kiddo and views her as a baby sister. Jokingly refers to her as “the sister he never wanted.”
  * Lesbian. She and Dean like to joke that they have a similar taste in women
  * Has a Princess Leia tattoo that she got at a convention when she was 20 and drunk



 

Jessica Lee Moore

  * Born: January 24, 1984
  * Was raised in Palo Alto, California by her parents Brady and Rachel. No siblings
  * Met Sam at a party when he was studying at Stanford Law School and she was studying to become a doctor at Stanford University School of Medicine
  * She and Sam have gotten a puppy together, Bones



 

Charles ‘Chuck’ Shurley

  * Born: September 21, 1970
  * Lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and meets the boys when they visit Bobby in 1993 and he happens to be at Bobby’s for a visit too.
  * If included, he will be turning 35 in 2005
  * Sometimes has a God-complex because he is a writer but is usually very humble
  * Wrote his first series under the pseudonym Carver Edlund when he met Sam and Dean in 1993 and their chemistry inspired him to write a book series based on a pair of brothers, Spencer and Dustin, who fight the supernatural together. Along the way, they work with their estranged father Jacob to find what killed their mother, Morgan, and Jacob’s good friend Russell ‘Russ’ who is like another father to the boys. Dean meets the angel Levanael (“Lev”) for whom he falls deeply in love. He is of course introduced in book four which is released in 1999, when Dean meets Cas. The books aren’t too popular, and ended in the last publication in 2001 with Spencer sacrificing himself to stop the apocalypse and allowing to Dean to live on with Levanael, who became human after the Devil killed him and God (who turns out to be the character and omniscient narrator Christopher ‘Chris’) resurrected him.
  * The books have been published in real life by McElderry Books, but in _The Monster at the End of This Book_ in Book 4, the publisher is "Flying Wiccan Press: Publishers of Quality Science Fiction and Graphic Novels" run by the publisher Sera Siege



**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic for way too long and finally, I think it's ready to be published. I hope you liked it enough to read the rest. Thank you! As a general disclaimer, I don't own Supernatural (or the Vow movie or fanvideo!) or anything that is affiliated with it. Any lines I use from the show are meant to be little eggs for y'all, not plagiarism.


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